Just Another Assignment
by ecarden
Summary: Book 1 of Assignments. History turns on powerful societal forces. Powerful societal forces turn on people. Phillip J. Coulson is sent to retrieve Ava Starr after the death of her parents. And so the universe changes. A Ghost rises and a city will not.
1. 1992—In The Air, As Always

**Chapter 1—1992—In The Air, As Always**

 ** _Author's Note: Saw Ant-Man and the Wasp, this idea just stuck with me. I'm screwing quite a bit with timelines here, but the MCU generally is pretty screwy with ages and times. Also, some things clearly happened very differently in the MCU than in the real world, what with Hydra, aliens, inhumans and the UN/"World Council" having a massive military/espionage wing capable of operating around the world (of all those, I find the last one the most implausible, by the way)._**

Melinda Qiaolin May was distracted piloting the plane, so Coulson put his feet up on a carefully selected clear spot. The other agent would knock them off her console the moment she had a hand free and he'd put them back the moment she was distracted. Their conversation however, continued uninterrupted.

"So one of Pym's victims turned out to be a traitor?" May asked, tone amused.

" _Chief_ Pym, and yes."

"Did _Chief_ Pym know when he fired the poor bastard that he was a traitor?"

"We don't even know if he was a traitor at the time. All Operations Division would say is that he's working for a weird alliance of Russian Mafia and Chechen Rebels, with the former providing funding and the later providing a base of operations."

"Good briefing, _boss_ ," she put that special inflection on it which made it a joke, "Do we have some actual intel on what we'll be facing on the ground?"

"You could have read the briefing packet."

"That's what you're for."

"Saving you from paperwork for almost a decade!"

"Ten years next week, yes, I haven't forgotten. Andrew's making the fancy thing you said you wanted, I trust you're working on my gift too?"

"Yes, I am, but I gotta say, having Andrew make my gift sounds like cheating, especially since the whole reason I chose it was so I could mock you as I ate the mangled version of it you managed."

"Hey! I can cook."

"You can cook exactly one dish. It's a little weird, May."

"See, now I'm looking forward to hitting someone. What're we in for?"

"A smoking crater and a ghost girl."

"Seriously?"

"The lab blew up. Fortunately some SHIELD peacekeepers got there before the rebels or the military did. They found no data, a few fragments, some creepy radiation and a girl who they couldn't touch. But who isn't radioactive herself, thankfully. Fortunately she could walk out. I couldn't get Pym—" he frowned to himself, then continued hoping she wouldn't notice, "his secretary wouldn't even put in the request, but I got one of his former partners, a Bill Foster, to join us out there."

"Ghost girl, eh? Just when you think you've seen everything. They say _Chief_ ," her eyes flicked towards hi and she smiled, knocking his feet to the deck with a wave of her hand, "Pym was working on some new power source, not infiltration tech."

"They say," Coulson agreed.

They smirked at one another, then May's eyes went back to the horizon and her controls and Coulson's feet rose back to their resting spot.

"Still, surprising Starr could get it to work, even with explosions where _Chief_ Pym couldn't. Don't think the Council would keep him around if he weren't delivering. Fury certainly wouldn't."

Coulson smiled, "Starr?" he hadn't said the man's name, she'd read the briefing packet, of course. Talking it through helped him process, so she did that. For him. Which wasn't going to stop him from mocking her for failing to successfully cover it up.

"Not going to insist on a rank for him?"

"As he's dead and can't get us reprimanded for forgetting to use his title, no."

The radio blared at them for a moment, conveying the results of the search for the girl's relatives, maternal or paternal. Their complete absence rather killed the mood.

Coulson went back into the body of the plane and checked his gear, then checked May's gear, then shook the pilot awake and sent him to relieve the specialist. The pilot hadn't been thrilled to hand over the plane he was responsible for to May, but decided that arguing with an Operation's Division Specialist was just asking for either pain, or humiliation and that taking the copilot's seat was the better part of valor. When the mission commander took the copilot's seat, he decided that everyone above a Level 2 was clearly a power mad pain in his ass and went to take a nap.

The body armor under Coulson's suit was worn because it was regulation, rather than because he believed it would be needed at a SHIELD base, or because he believed it would be useful against a girl who was apparently selectively incorporeal. The pistol at his waist and the backup under his arm were more for instinct and comfort than use on a mission like this one. Besides, he had Melinda if someone needed hurting, or killing.

Unfortunately, he couldn't offload the responsibility for dealing with a traumatized child onto her, or onto anyone else, at least until he could say that she wasn't a threat. After a moment of thought he swapped the pistol in the shoulder holster out for a taser. Shocking a child into unconsciousness was high on the list of things he didn't want to have to do, but lower than shooting a child with a pistol.

May got the standard SHIELD uniform, weapons and tactical gear, though she went with the lightest allowed loadout, as always. It annoyed him less than usual as they were going to a base full of SHIELD personnel and equipment they could borrow if they needed it and personnel who they could command. With the ease of long practice they assisted each other, tightening the hard to reach armor straps and confirming each of them was fully equipped and that Coulson's tie was straight.

They stepped out into the dusk light and Coulson silently slipped his sunglasses into his pocket. The short runway outside the former Soviet base which SHIELD had requisitioned after the World Security Council had chosen to get involved in the new Russian government's conflict with the Chechen rebels had had all its lights either stolen, or destroyed before their arrival and the repair crews had focused on the lights needed for planes and helicopters to land, not for pedestrians. Fortunately, a pair of escorts sent by the local commander showed up, wearing the heavier kit most commanders preferred for operations with the potential to end in shooting. Both were carrying large guns, with mounted flashlights.

An exchange of pleasantries, code-phrases and badges later, they were all convinced that they were all either members of SHIELD, or so well disguised as members of SHIELD that they should be treated as such and they were into the main body of the base. It was bog-standard Soviet architecture and unsurprisingly ugly, but someone had mounted the SHIELD insignia on one wall in a comforting fashion and a variety of ironically mocking posters were visible in the barracks they passed through on the way to the room the girl was housed in.

Bill Foster bustled up to them, a massive black man in a rumpled suit, who clearly was not concerned about appearances, his glasses flashing in the fluorescent lights, his short beard and shorter hair were black as his mood. It was hard to look intimidating while holding a small fluffy teddy bear, but the man had the attitude and the size (even if time in the lab was softening what once must have been impressive muscles) to make the attempt unamusing. "Are you the reason I haven't been allowed in to see her?"

Coulson had read the man's file, but he hadn't noticed the height and weight on there, being focused more on his academic qualifications. "Protocol is the reason you haven't been allowed in to see her, Dr. Foster. As you know. We need to make sure she's not a threat."

May slid half a step forward, between the two of them, in a manner which looked like peacemaking to someone who didn't know enough to recognize it as protective and threatening.

"She's nine years old."

"And was the sole survivor of a massive explosion at a lab researching an unknown subject, _as you know,_ Dr. Foster. If you want someone to be angry at, I'm sure I can find an agent who's been a bit slack recently. If you want to get in to see Ms. Starr, move so I can complete the evaluation. If you wanted to help her, you might go figure out what happened at the lab," Coulson said.

Foster stared down at the shorter agent for a long moment, hands resting on his belt. They tightened and Coulson could see a single muscle slowly tighten under May's uniform jacket as she prepared to move, then Foster's hands slid away from his belt, but not under the suit jacket he wore, nor near any of his pockets and the scientist walked away, trailed by his own escort, who was doing his best impression of May at her most stonefaced, rather than get drawn into the discussion.

Coulson waved their own escorts forward to lead them the rest of the way to the girl as May fell back, giving him a single raised eyebrow look as she passed. He acknowledged the silent statement that Dr. Foster was not going to be easy to handle with a flicker of a smile, then May was past him and back in position to watch his back. A moment later they were in the room next to where the girl was being kept and checking up on her on the closed circuit camera. She was sitting on the bed, arms wrapped around her legs.

"She's been like that for hours, sir," one of the techs said.

"Since we got her here," one of the others corrected him.

Coulson considered for a moment, "Has she eaten anything?"

"We offered food," one of the techs tapped the screen which showed a tray with a standard SHIELD field meal (repurposed US Army MREs, with a chocolate bar).

Coulson nodded, taking off his jacket, taser and pistol, placing them on a chair and gave May a slight nod and jerked his head towards the screen. A moment later, she took up position near the door, with a clean line of sight to the cameras, pulling the chair with his gear with her. His escorts tried to follow him out the door, but a quiet word stopped them. A few more words explained her view of escorts who completely failed to either protect or control the person they were escorting. Foster's escort wasn't present, but she was confident the message would be conveyed to the man, word for word.

 **XXXXX**

Coulson knocked on the door and waited. Then he knocked again. Then he called through the door asking permission to come in. Ava Starr finally responded, in a whimpering voice, with just a whisper of a British accent, told him he could come in.

"Hello, Ms. Starr," Coulson said as he came in. Though still wrapped around herself, she was looking up and had spoken. The room was some officer's repurposed quarters, with a single cot, a dresser, a desk and a desk chair, with the food she'd been brought sitting on the desk.

"'llo," she said to her knees, eyes going back down.

"May I sit down?" Coulson asked, carefully waiting for her to agree before taking the seat and moving the food onto the bed next to her. Dark eyes flicked over her while hers were down. The girl was slight, even for a nine year old, skin a lighter brown than in the last picture he'd seen of her, she probably hadn't seen the sun since her father was fired from SHIELD. Despite her reported abilities (and the video he'd seen of her initial recovery) she hadn't fallen through the bed, or the floor, so there was some limitation on either her abilities or on whatever was doing this to her.

"My name is Phillip Coulson, but you can call me Phil. May I call you Ava?"

She nodded against her knees.

"Ava. I'm here to help. How can I help?" he waited.

Silence stretched. It felt like an eternity and he had some difficulty resisting the urge to offer solutions, but a silent count in his head said it was only twenty seconds before she whispered that she wanted her parents.

As Coulson had seen the photographs of her parents' bodies, he was pretty sure that was not an option.

"I'm sorry Ava. Your mother and father are dead. They died in the explosion. But you are not alone."

"'s my fault," she whispered even more quietly, still talking to her knees.

Coulson ruthlessly suppressed the human part of him which wanted to assure the child in front of him that it wasn't her fault, it couldn't be her fault. "What makes you think that, Ava?"

She looked up at him, "I'm here."

"Ava, about a year ago, I was part of a convey on a way to a location, do you know what a convoy is?"

She'd started to look down again, but the question brought her eyes back up. "No."

"A group of cars. Anyway a bad man used a bomb to destroy one of the cars. Some friends of mine were killed. I wasn't. Was that my fault?"

She didn't have the information to answer that question, but she did have the same human instincts he did and they weren't being suppressed by SHIELD training. "No!"

Coulson cocked his head. "If that wasn't my fault, then what makes you think this was your fault?"

She shook, then came off the bed in a lunge, which almost provoked an unfortunate, combat trained, reaction from the agent, but he managed to control it as she wrapped her arms around him. A quick hug, substantial for a moment, then she passed through him and fell to the floor, whimpering.

Carefully controlling his face, Coulson slid the chair back and knelt by her, carefully not touching her until she reached out for him again and then he just held her while she cried, slowly stroking her back and her hair.

Tears wracked her tiny body as she shook against him. The fact that she wasn't passing through him was interesting as well. It couldn't simply be a matter of failure to concentrate on the action she was taking, as he'd originally supposed (given the lack of phasing through the bed and floor) as she certainly hadn't been concentrating on any movement at this moment. Perhaps an emotional reaction? Fear of first responders, fear of his reaction, that might explain it, or it might be random, impossible to know given what information he had. Still, he pondered the options as he continued to murmur the most comforting things he could think of into her hair.

The moment she pulled away he released her. A moment later she was back on the bed, looking at the food. She took one bite, then another, then before hunger could make her descend on it like a ravenous wolverine, she stopped and looked up at him, speaking clearly to him, voice flat with forced, temporary control, tear-soaked face locked on his as she gave her confession, "It's my fault because I went back. Daddy said to run, Mommy pulled me away, but I went back. If I hadn't we'd have got away."

"No, Ava, you wouldn't have," Coulson's voice was certain, because he'd seen the photographs of the devastation. "The entire complex was destroyed, no one on that floor made it out. Unless your return took ten minutes, there was never any chance of escape."

She was too cried out to fully respond to that, instead turning away and wolfing down the entire tray, though it occasionally took her two or three tries to get the food off the tray. After an impressive burp, she stared at him nervously.

"Is there something you would like to ask, Ava?"

"What's wrong with me?"

"I'm not sure anything is _wrong_ with you, but can I ask, were you able to pass through things like this before the incident?"

"NO!" Her hands closed on her hair. "I wasn't!"

"Then what makes you think it's something _wrong_ with you, instead of just something different about you now?"

"It _hurts_ , idiot," that last word was muttered, but still he took it as a good sign, most children didn't attack unless they felt generally safe.

"I'm sorry for your pain. Can you tell me, does it hurt all the time? Or when you phase through things? Or when you interact with things without phasing through them?"

She glared at him, "It just hurts."

"And we need to understand why in order to make it stop hurting," Coulson explained calmly.

"Can you do that?"

"I won't make you promises I don't know if I can keep. So here's what I can promise, I will try to make the pain stop."

She looked down and brought her legs back up, "Okay," she whispered, disbelievingly. A little more discussion clarified that it hurt all the time, but worse when she passed through things. At that point, Coulson needed to extract himself, which was a bit difficult, as abandoning a scared child who was in pain was not actually something he was wired for.

"Ava," he reached into his pocket and pulled out the leather wallet containing his SHIELD badge and ID. "I work for SHIELD, do you know what that is?"

"Police?" she asked.

"Of a sort," he passed over the badge, placing it on the bed where she could reach it if she wanted, it was open to reveal the actual metal badge and the laminated plastic of his ID, proclaiming him to be Phillip J. Coulson, Level 6, Agent of SHIELD. "SHIELD is many things to many people. But to me, it's home, it's family, it's purpose," her eyes glazed over a bit at the speechifying. "That," he pointed at the badge, "means I'll never be alone. I'll always have a team, a family, a home."

The look she gave him was defiant, but he could see fear under it.

"You're welcome in that home, for as long as you like," he said, glancing at his watch and rising. "Bedtime, Ava, good night."

Coulson rose and headed for the door, "You forgot your badge," she said.

"Can you hold onto it for me?"

She nodded to his back, then spoke when she realized he couldn't hear her, "Yes."

"Thank you. If you need me before I return, just knock on the door, or go through and ask the guard to come get me, okay? The guard's there to protect you," he said, which was mostly true, "you're not a prisoner," he continued, which was mostly false.

"'kay," she mumbled.

"Goodnight, Ava," he said again, turning out the lights as he left the room.

"'Night," she muttered. She probably didn't intend him to hear the whispered complaint that he wasn't the boss of her, or her father, but the microphones on the security cameras were very good.

Five minutes of whimpering later, exhaustion won out over pain and she was wrapped around one of the pillows, snoring quietly enough that it was adorable, rather than irritating, one hand clutched Coulson's badge.

 ** _Author's Note: Adorable child in agony is a good place to end this chapter, right? Let me know in the reviews._**


	2. 1992—Grounded, In More Ways Than One

**Chapter 2—1992—Grounded, In More Ways Than One.**

 ** _Author's Note: Just a warning, Hank Pym is in for a bit of a moral beating in this story, mostly because none of our viewpoint characters have any idea what's going on with him, where Janet's gone to and why he's getting obsessed with Quantum Energy, the Quantum Realm_ or _why he's getting so paranoid. Moreover, his successes are secret, leaving our viewpoint characters with the impression that he's an arrogant tool._**

"Dr. Foster, do you have any experience with traumatized, injured children? Or adults? Or anyone?"

"No, but—"

"Does Ms. Starr really need to be woken up so that you can tell her what you found at the scene of her parents' deaths?"

"No, but—"

"Then how about you brief me on what you found, and then figure out (1) how to stop Ms. Starr's pain, (2) why she is in constant pain, (3) why she can phase through objects and (4) what happened in that facility? Does that seem like a reasonable course of action, Dr. Foster?"

The doctor nodded slightly, "Fine, okay, I looked at the site and took some readings with various equipment," he paused for a moment, eyes flicking over Coulson and May, "which you don't care about, and wouldn't understand. Whatever Elihas was doing, he was continuing the work we were doing under Pym. Most reasonable hypothesis is he ran into the same set of problems we have, but didn't have enough precautions in place and the whole place was flooded with quantum radiation. It dissipates quickly but there was some still detectible, mostly in the…remains."

"No other survivors though, and her parents were right there."

"I could give you a guess about immaturity and development still occurring, but that's all it would be, a guess."

"What would you need to answer those questions?"

"Pym's lab, a hundred million dollars and ten years," Dr. Foster snapped facetiously.

"Does it have to be Chief Pym's lab, or does it simply need to have all the same equipment as Chief Pym's lab?" Coulson countered.

Foster stared down at the agent for a moment, sarcastic response dying on his tongue in the face of sincere curiosity on the younger man's face.

"You're serious, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Then no, I wouldn't need Pym's lab, though the man himself would be useful."

"Who else would be useful?"

"I can have a list of names for you by the time we arrive."

"Please do."

"I hate to say it, but Hank Pym is _the_ expert on quantum energy and radiation, but that's going to be a problem and not just because he's the most arrogant bastard in SHIELD's entire science division, which is saying something."

"Why is it going to be a problem?" Coulson asked, completely ignoring Foster's description of Pym.

"Elihas hated Pym ever since he got him fired and blacklisted. I didn't spend much time with him after he was fired, but he was…loud about everything being Pym's fault."

"Unfortunately, Elihas is not around to be upset by Chief Pym's involvement," Coulson pointed out.

"No, but Ava is and she was there when Elihas was being…loud."

"So she knows a man named Hank Pym ruined her father's life."

"Yes," Dr. Foster agreed.

"Then I'll let you focus on producing a list of what you need to help her," Coulson said, guiding the good doctor out without ever appearing to be dismissing the older man.

May slid out from where she'd been standing behind Foster to let him escape, then when the door closed said, "Bad idea."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Coulson said innocently.

"Putting aside the fact that _Chief_ Pym won't be able to keep quiet, she'll find out eventually regardless of what you call him, that you let her enemy examine her while she was helpless and in pain."

"Such a thing never even occurred to me, I was simply making sure I understood what she knew about Chief Pym," Coulson said and even May wasn't sure if he was full of it or not.

"Good. Andrew will meet us at Sci-Tech," May said.

"Good," he mimicked her tonelessness. "Are you going to get some sleep, or let the assigned pilot fly us?"

May snorted genteelly. "Are you going to get some sleep, or try to keep up with a nine year old on none?"

"Sleep would be good," he admitted.

She waited for him to continue in absolute silence.

"Today has…not been great. Tiny child in horrible pain I can't do anything about is not my preferred scenario."

May waited.

"Yeah, yeah, lab is a good first step, but we both know how long it takes to do science."

"Labs are expensive, too," she pointed out.

"Yeah, yeah, but Fury's onboard, though he's more interested in how she got her powers and how they can be given to SHIELD agents than the rest of it."

"Fun," May said with a tiny frown.

"Given Ava's reaction, probably not so much."

She rolled her eyes at him. He straightened, glancing around the officer's quarters they'd lent him, which May had gone over to ensure there were no bugs and the little humor remaining in him drained out.

"Make sure we've got copies of whatever Foster found and that no one but us and Foster has them." The site had mostly been sterilized by the explosion and the remaining items would be collected by the clean-up team and shipped to them at the Academy of Science and Technology and quiet word in the ear of the base commander meant that the former lab site would be under a certain amount of surveillance, in case anyone came looking for the Starr family, or what they'd produced.

"He took a team, they'll have copies of whatever he recorded," May warned.

"No. They won't," Coulson replied.

"Understood. And what will you be doing while I'm making sure we're the only ones who know what's going on?"

"Well, first I get the wonderful fun of re-writing this office's interrogation protocol to ensure that everyone they catch gets asked about this without revealing that Ava exists. Then I need to update the Moscow office and see if they can dig anything out of the mafia side of this. Then I'm going to re-interrogate the survivors amongst the exterior guards—actually, I'm going to have you do that, because then I'm going to have a conversation with Deputy Director Hill and Chief Carson and get this whole thing reclassified as level 5, with a need to know requirement and make sure that this lab remains under my control _and_ Chief Pym doesn't take control of it. Oh, and I need to prep Ava for the move and the labs and Andrew and…everything. Remind me again why it was just you and me on this job?"

"Because we were supposed to be able to pull from the local office for any support we need, but you've decided not to trust any of them," May answered his rhetorical question, with just a hint of acid in her voice.

"That was before we knew the situation Ava was in and that it might be reproducible."

May just stared at him.

"Okay, yes, tiny adorable child is adorable. I admit I may be being a bit overprotective, but let's take what precautions we can take, okay?"

"Sure, Coulson, but I want to be there when you tell Pym—" she smiled, " _Chief_ Pym, that you're installing a lab at his academy, which you aren't going to give him access to."

"Thank you so much for your support," sarcasm dripped from his lips.

"It's what I'm here for, well, that and scaring folks senseless. I'll go get your data and I'll have a quick, middle of the night, chat with the surviving Chechen Rebels and Russian Mafioso. Good thing I've used my Russian three times since the Academy. Chechens will speak Russian, right?"

"How would I know? I've never been here before."

"So helpful."

"I try."

 **XXXXX**

Ava woke up in pain, clutching a badge like it was a teddy bear, and called for her parents. They did not come. She called for Coulson. He came. He offered her a classical Coulson choice, where all acceptable paths led to the end he desired. She wouldn't recognize that for what it was, now. Instead, she felt in control, until she phased through his badge when she tried to pass it back.

That was embarrassing. And painful.

It was nice that he passed it back to her and asked her to hold onto it for him though. It meant he was coming back for her.

The plane was scary. The pilot was scarier. She truly feared the pilot might be a robot, which would have been cool, but in this moment, in this mindsight, nothing could be cool.

It was impossible to be scared of Phil, though and his guard, though dressed in full body armor, was such a dork she couldn't be scared of him. Besides, Bill was there and she knew him, not well, but better than anyone else she'd seen since her parents died. He was weird and awkward, but he always had been, so it was familiar, in a way that was nice for almost five seconds and then painful.

But it was a better form of pain than most of that which filled her these days.

And besides, Bill promised that he would help.

That was nice, even if she didn't quite believe him.

 **XXXXX**

May had pouted for most of the trip, but seeing her husband cheered her up, though you had to know her to tell that.

She had not been thrilled by the idea of flying a supersonic jet with a child onboard who might fall out the bottom. Unfortunately, it wasn't notably less deadly to fall out the bottom of a car and they were a long way from the nearest boat (not that that would have been much safer). That left them with the options of building a lab in the middle of a warzone, or moving the girl. Neither option appealed.

Especially since they still didn't know (1) if she could rematerialize inside things and (2) what that would do to the thing and to her. And while May was confident in her ability to make sure she and Coulson and even the rookie 'pilot' who'd been assigned to them got off the plane alive in the event the girl blew a massive hole in the plane, but that wouldn't help Ava, nor would it help whoever the flaming wreckage of their plane landed on.

Coulson had decided that getting out of the war-zone which probably contained at least a few people who knew what sort of research was going on and might have heard about an enhanced survivor was worth the risk. That was probably the right decision, at least, it had turned out all right, but May was still grumpy about the risk, as she always was when other people took them.

Her mood improved less than usual at her husband's presence as he swept up Dr. Foster and Ava to visit their temporary home while the lab was being upgraded, while she was going to get the wonderful experience of accompanying Coulson to approximately fifty meetings/debriefings/discussions about the path forward.

Or at least that's what she'd expected, instead, to her surprise, Coulson, who usually took the view that (his) misery loved (her) company (and more reasonably that she saw things he missed) and so forced her to accompany him to those meetings, decided that her time was better spent reviewing and improving the physical security on the temporary quarters and designing the security for the new lab. A brief mention of 'Pym' without the man's title was as subtle a request as he could manage that she keep the senior man away from Ava, her nodded response was so subtle it might have been mistaken for a twitch by someone who didn't know her.

 **XXXXX**

"You do remember I'm not a child psychologist, right?" Andrew asked, as he'd cornered Coulson in his office in the Communications Academy, where the other man was, of all things, knitting. Andrew plopped down in the one other chair in Coulson's rat's nest of an office.

Coulson looked up at May's husband, putting down the mostly-complete hat. "I do remember that. I also remember you're the only shrink with clearance who I know I can work with long term and this is looking more and more like a long term project. And I remember that you're free to consult whoever you need to so long as the details of Ava's unique circumstances are left out."

"You're lucky Melinda's working security there, otherwise I might still say no, given my workload," Andrew said, white teeth flashing against black skin.

"Thank you, Andrew," Phil caroled, though there was an undercurrent of sincerity that kept his words from being entirely mocking and looked back down at the hat he resumed work on.

"You know when Melinda asked for a Coulson-knitted hat as her ten year anniversary gift, I think she thought that she was going to get to actually see you knit, given how much time you too spend together."

Coulson snorted, "Yeah, well, home-cooked meal was supposed to be cooked by May, but I hear you're handling that as well."

"That's really to your benefit, Phil. You know, the two of you could be more precise."

"Yeah, but then we'd have to put effort into finding ways around the humiliation and we've both got plenty of work."

"You could try not attempting to humiliate one another," Andrew offered, a hint of exasperation in his voice.

Coulson looked up again into Andrew's warm, dark eyes, seeing the ridiculously handsome man May had married and changed the subject. "I won't ask how Ava's doing, since I know you won't tell me anything, but if there's changes to my behavior, or her environment, or…anything, really, I should be making, you will tell me." his voice rose slightly towards the end, appending what someone who didn't know him might have mistaken for a question mark to the end of that sentence.

Andrew knew it for the invitation to agree which it was and chose to accept the invitation. "Yes, yes, but it's going to be a while before I have any useful insights, so far you seem to be doing reasonably well. Doing what you say, assurances that it wasn't her fault, offering choices and control," his eyes narrowed slightly at the agent, "or at least the appearances thereof. If you can offer some consistency in your presence, that would be good too, though I know your schedule is…unpredictable," there was just a hint of complaint in those words, as Coulson's schedule was May's schedule, most of the time.

"I'll do what I can. Any other advice?"

"Get some sleep man, you look terrible," Andrew said, and it was true, Coulson looked wan and pallid and exhausted.

"Go bug your wife," Coulson said, waving a hand in dismissal, "she's been up as long as I have."

"Yeah," Andrew shrugged, "but she's tougher than you are."

Coulson gave a little half nod against his will, admitting the correctness of Andrew's statement, while attempting to deny its truth.

"I'll be around and I'll see you for dinner next week. If things have gone well, we may want to think about including Ava," Andrew said, rising from his chair and heading for the exit.

"She'd be the only kid there," Coulson pointed out to Andrew's back.

"She's going to be the only kid almost everywhere she goes for a long time," Andrew said. "Better that she's part of SHIELD than a prisoner of it," he continued on in a muttered undertone, "though I might wish for a third option."

"You and me both," Coulson admitted with a frown, and resumed knitting.

 ** _Author's Note: There, knitting, a better ending point for a chapter. Also, I know I'm aging Hill up a couple of decades, I'm fine with that for the deputy director. Let me know what you think in the reviews._**


	3. 1992—Back Home, Where I've Never Been

**Chapter 3—1992—Back Home, Where I've Never Been**

 ** _Author's Note: Forward!_**

"We got lucky," Dr. Foster said as he examined the gutted lab which had been assigned to them.

"Not exactly the word I would use," Coulson said, glancing around the empty room, mentally noting the load bearing walls, just in case he needed to breach the lab at some point in the future.

"I meant with Hank being on one of his walkabouts," Foster said.

"Ah, yes," Coulson agreed, though to be honest, he wasn't at all sure whether it was luck, or Fury's intervention which had sent Chief Pym out of the country at this delicate moment.

May was walking around the lab area with the blueprints in her hands, already designing the defenses and Ava's quarters in her head.

Ava and Andrew were having their second session, which gave Coulson some time on his own, as Ava was a bit…attached to him at the moment. Not surprising given the circumstances, but it made it a little tricky to do his work, which was all classified. And though a surprising amount of it was horribly dull, there was still plenty of stuff which wasn't exactly age appropriate for a nine year old. Which he should probably get back to.

A polite goodbye to Foster and he headed over to May, a completely superfluous reminder that she should include Ava in the design of her quarters got a remarkably communicative, if completely flat stare. A few minutes later he was back in his office. He'd had to get it transferred over to Sci-Tech, as he'd been working out of the Communications Academy for the past few months before which he'd been at the Triskelion, before that, the Hub, Fury kept him moving and he carried his office with him, a piece of stability in an unstable world. The paperwork which covered it was decorative and misleading and had been transferred precisely from each of his former offices. His actual files were all digital.

With his door closed, the security scan confirmed there were no bugs and Coulson opened the cabinet behind his desk, revealing an old school safe. He opened its heavy door to reveal a gun, cash, IDs, everything a spy needed. A fingernail into an almost invisible seam opened a panel on the door of the safe, revealing a hard drive with all the files he needed for his current work, which had been updated while he was in Chechnya to include everything related to his current mission. He pulled the hardware decoder from his keyring and used it to connect the hard drive to the cable running, not-at-all-coincidentally, directly over the safe. His computer's innocuous desktop vanished when he flicked it over into secure mode (to Coulson's silent curses, as he'd forgotten to close out his Freecell game and for some reason secure mode always crashed Freecell) and he entered the passwords which would give him access to the material he needed to do his job.

The security precautions were a holdover from his first days in the Triskelion, before its security systems were complete. The building was still under construction and had been for five years, but SHIELD had been under pressure to get people into it and the former director had assigned then-Chief Fury and his entire team to the place, on the basis that they were best equipped to handle security issues.

The precautions probably weren't necessary anymore, as the place slowly filled with SHIELD agents, but habits were hard to break. And paranoia definitely got to be a habit. Still, another few decades and he might be able to follow the more standard protocols.

The routine work he handled with templates he'd made over the last decade. The non-routine he mostly routed to other people, Sitwell picked up a few little analysis projects and the Koenigs got to run the updated background checks and conflict checks on the people Foster wanted to help him and the construction crews that were needed. Orders went out to SHIELD offices in London, Buenos Aires and Chechnya. That just left Coulson with the non-routine requisitions of equipment and paying everyone. SHIELD contracting rules were a lot easier than any US Government agency, but they were still hard enough that Coulson was glad to be able to piggyback off Chief Pym's contracts for backup equipment and repairs/installation.

Even that required working with Contracting and then signing many, many, many things.

In his career so far, Coulson had met cruel and vicious people. He had fought gifted people and once, a mutated pig which for some reason had been genetically spliced with a spider. However, if asked, he would have said that paperwork was the real enemy and its power to replicate whenever he turned away was the most fearsome he had faced thus far.

With a heavy sigh, he turned to face his enemy and got to work.

XXXXX

The Sci-Tech gym was usually empty, as the students of the Academy of Science and Technology did not generally spend any more time there than was needed to pass the bare minimum fitness and health requirements for whatever post they were after post-graduation.

It therefore was not a problem to reserve it for specific times every day to let Ava burn off some energy. May planned to take the opportunity to train the guards she'd chosen for the lab's security and Dr. Foster, as she had successfully convinced the older man he needed to participate in order to ensure he could help protect Ava if he needed to (and thereby won her bet with Coulson who hadn't thought she could get a forty-five year old scientist into the gym without implicit or explicit threats).

Andrew had said a consistent schedule was important, so Coulson set one up, even though they were still in temporary housing, session with Andrew, exercise, time off and home-schooling. It was that last one that was a problem, not because of a shortage of teachers at the Academy, but there was a shortage of people with clearance to interact with Ava and the ones who had it weren't the sort who taught children, they were the sort who taught specialized high level courses. Fortunately, one of Foster's preferred scientists also had a background in teaching children, and so Anne Weaver got to be fast-tracked through her reviews and bumped two levels (and got to join Foster for the training May was insisting they have).

From Coulson's perspective, this was actually pretty close to ideal, as working out with May usually involved bruises and a certain amount of humiliation, but with half-a-dozen level 2 grunts and a pair of scientists, she couldn't really focus on him, leaving him free to play with Ava.

On the first day of their new schedule, Coulson was having a little difficulty in coming up with games to play with her. Any games involving chasing her were an invitation to panic attacks and any games where she chased him were an invitation to discovering what happened if she rematerialized while passing through someone, which was still something they hadn't figured out, but they could run around, irritate the sparring adults, race each other, play basic training drills recast as games in the giant open gym and generally have fun.

And they could steal the use of the pool and go swimming. Finding a swimsuit for Ava was a bit tricky, as Sci-Tech rather lacked children and taking Ava out in public was not really a good idea. So he had a word with a man whose store he'd saved from being burned down as a joke by an evil mime and picked up one of every possible size of swimsuit, then sent back all the ones which didn't fit (and cash for the one which did fit). It was a _lot_ of prep for a trip which required them to walk a grand total of a thousand feet, but it was worth it to see Ava smiling as she jumped into the pool.

That was a lot of fun as they began to splash around. After seeing how good Ava was in the water, Coulson drew her into swimming laps, handicapping himself by only swimming with his arms to keep it about even. Everything was going perfectly until Ava shifted and began to panic as immaterial fingers slid through water like it wasn't there and she sank like a stone to the bottom of the pool. Thankfully she stopped there, less thankfully, her immaterial form couldn't rise and she was panicking. Coulson didn't notice, because he was swimming parallel to her.

Dr. Foster was watching and did notice, and yelled for help, then became distracted, hopefully concluding that it was impossible for her to suffocate, as she obviously couldn't breathe while immaterial. This pronouncement was not terribly well received, or useful.

Coulson had reached the wall and was underwater approaching the wall and didn't hear the shout, but May did. The veteran agent chucked her sparring partner onto the mat and was in the water before Coulson had finished kicking off the wall. The splash of her entry was small, but as she kicked past his vision, he followed her instinctively.

Ava lashed out and kicked out, frantically seeking purchase which would let her claw her way to the surface. She failed. Panic filled her face and she was screaming, though neither sounds nor air bubbles escaped her twisted face.

If there'd been time, Coulson would have wanted the front position, but May was already there, signaling for Ava's attention, leaving Coulson to get behind her, ready to grab and pull for the surface the moment she rematerialized.

May's workout clothes were not intended for swimming, but she wore sweats and a tank top, so was in no danger of being drowned by her own uniform, unlike a fully equipped agent Coulson had once seen—his mind was skittering away from what he needed to be focused on, afraid in a way he hadn't been in years. He focused back on Ava.

May's hands swayed near the girl's thrashing face and Ava finally looked at her. May met her eyes and let her hands move, keeping herself in place under the water, right by Ava, but her eyes never moved from Ava's.

Coulson's lungs began to burn, he'd been underwater before May hit the water and hadn't prepared to stay down, but he wouldn't push up. The human body can survive without air for a surprisingly long time, the hard part is forcing the body not to succumb to its desire for oxygen and forcing the mind not to collapse into unconsciousness. Fighting to stay under water was surprisingly hard, but he kept himself down, until suddenly there was a massive impact against his stomach and legs, slamming him back against the edge of the pool and driving what little air remained in him from his lungs.

May was likewise pushed back, though not into a wall and now Ava's thrashing began to have some effect. Coulson moved quick as he could underwater, arms coming up under Ava's armpits and he kicked off the bottom of the pool, shoving them to the surface in a single, powerful movement.

They both were gasping for air the moment they broke the surface, but Coulson was already pulling her towards the edge of the pool, where Foster and the others were gathering. The scientist grabbed Ava's arm as soon as she was within reach and pulled her out of the water. Coulson glanced back and saw May knifing her way through the water to the opposite edge of the pool and pulled himself out.

Foster had Ava wrapped in a tight hug, murmuring something comforting to her.

Coulson was rather picturing what would happen if Ava rematerialized inside the man and he was shoved outwards the way the water which had occupied the same space as her body had been.

"Haven't you ever seen a girl go swimming before? Back to it!" May snapped to the guards, shoving her wet hair out of her face as she stalked around the pool towards them, squishing with every step, as her outfit was now rather more form fitting and transparent than before, it was no longer entirely appropriate for sparring. None of the people she was training, except Dr. Weaver, were dumb enough to look anywhere but May's face. Not even Dr. Weaver was dumb enough to say anything.

She stopped by Ava, dropped a hand one the girl's shoulder and waited there wordlessly for a moment, then bent over and took off her soaking wet tennis shoes and headed back over to the mats. Coulson grabbed one of the towels he'd laid out (which May had disdained) and approached Ava. He wrapped it around her back and she instantly detached from Bill and clung to him like a limpet. The same image of occupying the same space and exploding filled his mind for a moment, but he ignored it as he hugged her back and toweled her off. When her breathing finally began to even out she pulled away a bit and he passed over the front of the towel and grabbed another one off the floor to dry himself off.

"Well, that was exciting," he said blandly.

XXXXX

"Why are we listening to this?" May asked, as the upbeat bubblegum pop filled the car.

"Ava asked for it," Coulson explained, glancing over at her as he drove the standard nondescript SHIELD car to yet another meeting justifying the expenditure of funds on the lab.

"No, that's why you bought it when we stopped for gas. Ava is not in this car, so why are _we_ listening to this?"

"It has a parental advisory warning on it, see?" he asked guilelessly, holding up the CD-case. "I really feel I should check and make sure there's nothing inappropriate on here."

"You're like a big kid yourself," May muttered.

"What was that, May? I couldn't hear you way up here in Level 6."

Her next response actually was inaudible, which was probably a good thing.

XXXXX

Chief Hank Pym, leader of his own lab, an entire branch of the Science Division and one of the most senior researches in SHIELD, was finally back in town. He was also a little bit taller than Coulson, quite a bit heavier than him and two decades older. He still had most of the muscle which an early career in the US Army had given him and Coulson knew that the man continued to work out and spent weekends over at the Operations Academy keeping his combat skills sharp. Reviewing his file made for interesting reading, especially the bits that had disappeared into redacted history, which even Coulson's authority didn't give him access to without a need to know which he couldn't justify.

As Coulson was almost thirty, not almost fifty, and trained with May, not Operations Academy trainers, he was confident he could win if it came to a fight, but winning a fight with a branch chief of the Science Division would not actually be a victory.

"Chief Pym? How can I help you?" Coulson asked as the older man had ambushed him outside Ava's new lab, which was still under construction, but the security was live and as thorough as May could make it. Though May was always a consummate professional, she'd gone above and beyond on this one and was undoubtedly watching this unfortunate encounter on the security cameras she'd had installed.

"Did you think I wouldn't find out?" Pym asked, voice low and furious.

"Could you be more precise? I know a great many things I didn't think you would find out about. For instance, are we talking about my set of Captain America trading cards? I'm only missing one and I think I've got a bead on it, though I have to say, I'm a little dubious that a descendant of one of the Howling Commandos will really part with a mint condition limited edition 1944 Captain America Ration Card for just some cash," Coulson's filibuster was cut off by the scientist's furious interruption.

"About the lab, the lab we are standing outside. The only lab in this whole place that I can't access? The lab that contains defenses specially designed to keep me out. The lab that's filled with _my_ equipment and apparently studying the child of one of the fools who tried to steal my research."

Coulson kept his face pleasant as he considered what exactly was meant by 'defenses specifically designed to keep me out' as he wasn't aware of any specific defenses against middle aged scientists, either installed around the lab, or in existence. Indeed, it was somewhat difficult to imagine why such defenses could possibly be necessary. He'd want to follow-up with May and see what was going on, but for now, he had Pym to deal with.

"Sir, we are attempting to assist a scared and injured child who was told by her now-deceased parents that you ruined their lives. Your presence would not be helpful in that task, as I think you know."

"I am _the_ expert on quantum energy, if the girl's been exposed and that's the only thing that makes any sense given the equipment you've brought in, then you need me."

"If we need you, I'm sure you'll be happy to help a child in need, at this time however, we do not."

"We'll see about that, there's a way into every box, if you have the right perspective," Pym smirked, "and you can't always be on guard."

Coulson's face did not freeze, nor did it lose its pleasant expression. He did not punch the older man, nor did he give the silent signal which would bring support. He did not activate the device which would bring May to him, nor the one which would send the lab into lockdown. Instead, he continued as if the other man's threat was a mere comment, "Indeed, Chief Pym, I cannot. Any more than you can always be on guard over Hope. I'm sure she understands that's why you sent her to Wycombe Abbey Boarding School. I'm sure she's happy in…Butler House, was it—"

Pym lunged forward and Coulson suppressed the automatic reaction, letting the older man carry him backwards against the wall.

"Are you threatening my daughter?" Pym asked, voice a low whisper which promised death would be the response to the wrong answer.

"Not at all, Chief Pym. I was simply commenting on the difficulty of protecting the children in our care," Coulson said, voice still pleasant. "Just as you were, _right_?"

Pym's glare was the scientist's only response, but his hands loosened their grip and he stepped back, smoothing out his lab coat. "This isn't over. I'll find out what you're up to, you aren't the only one with contacts at the top of SHIELD. Stark, Carter, Carson, Fury, I know them all. I may not like them, but I know them and they know my value. And if you even think of touching my daughter, I'll kill you. Thoroughly."

"Chief Pym, you seem to be acting as if we were enemies, we aren't. We are colleagues. There's no need for us to be enemies."

"You'd best hope that's true," Pym said, walking away.

"I do hope it's true," Coulson agreed. And he did.

He didn't make threats. But if he concluded Pym was an enemy, then he would prove that to Fury, get the appropriate orders in place and have the older man crossed off without warning, preferably by a sniper from several hundred meters away with a supersonic rifle which would have him dead before he even heard the bullet.

It took Coulson almost an hour to have quiet conversations with Hill and a half-dozen other senior people, who it could be argued needed to know, distributing the security footage (which, fortunately, lacked audio) to all of them along with a truthful, if not entirely complete, description of the conversation and Dr. Pym's unfortunate instability following the death of his wife.

Tailoring his argument to the character of his colleagues was a bit irritating, he almost accidentally made a 'think of the children' argument to Garrett, instead of the correct, 'think of the potential' and 'we're field agents, screw the scientists' arguments. By the time he was ready to go discussed the allegedly tailored defenses, senior people working high ranking positions in all three divisions, Fury's office and the liason's office, knew that they could expect requests for involvement and how to respond to those requests.

Finally Coulson was free to have a conversation with May regarding the alleged anti-Pym defenses.

She had no idea what he was talking about, but did add that she'd included a few additions to the defensive systems based on Dr. Foster's recommendations about helping make sure Ava didn't fall through the floor (though that hadn't happened yet) or accidentally walk through walls (which had happened repeatedly) something about dense materials and particle barriers. May herself had doubled up all the usual defenses and amenities, while ensuring independent power sources for all of them. All the standard SHIELD precautions, turned up to eleven, with additional redundant power sources for all the lab equipment _and_ all of Ava's toys and entertainment as they wanted to get her settled in as soon as possible.

"I'll move her over now," Coulson said.

"There's still some construction going on here."

"Yes, but Pym," and now his failure to use the older man's title was clearly deliberate, "does not seem to be entirely stable and I think removing temptation from his path is our best bet."

"Agreed. I've already had a word with the security detail, they know better than to let Pym in. I'll check with the doctor, see if he knows more about Pym and this business with special defenses."

XXXXX

"Shrinking? Seriously?"

"And growing. Apparently."

"Our lives are weird," Coulson noted.

May just nodded.

"He can't get in here?"

"Apparently not, something to do with the airlock design for the lab and the reinforced walls and barriers over all the ventilation. Dr. Foster has a whole explanation about it, but—"

"If you couldn't spot any holes in his explanation, then neither will I. Still, we won't be able to secure Ava outside the lab…unless we know where the doctor is."

May nodded. "His secretary will have his schedule…"

"I somehow doubt she's willing to give it to me."

"I don't know, you can be charming, in a bumbling sort of way."

"Thank you, May."

She gave the tiny lip curl that was her smirk, "Or so Andrew tells me. Can't see it myself."

"Thank you, May. I'll figure something out."

"I'm sure."

 ** _Author's note: There, an actual happy chapter ending. Except for the whole, everything still causes Ava pain and she may accidentally break anything/anyone she touches. Still, baby steps, right? Or nine-year-old steps! Even better! Let me know in the reviews._**


	4. 1993—Coming Home, To A Place I Know

**Chapter 4—1993—Coming Home, To A Place I Know**

 ** _Author's Note: Forward!_**

May spread her arms wide in false cheer, "It's the Sherriff! Welcome, welcome, three times welcome!"

Ava, ducking out of her session with Andrew a few minutes early caught May's greeting to the freshly returned Coulson and asked the obvious question. "Why are you calling him Sherriff? You didn't change jobs, right?" there was less of a tremor in her voice than Coulson had feared, but sessions with Andrew always grounded her a bit.

"Of course not, Ava, I'm not leaving SHIELD," he let the corollary go without explicit note. "And May is calling me the Sherriff, because while she got to be here with you folks, I had to be out in the field, chasing a man who was running around Iowa who was using a bow and arrow to rob from the rich and give to the poor. For a definition of poor which included himself," he added as an aside to May and Andrew as the later followed his patient out of the all-purpose room which was used for Ava's classes as well as her therapy sessions.

"Robin Hood is it?" Andrew asked May.

"Which makes me the Sherriff of Nottingham," Coulson agreed with a flamboyant bow to the room at large.

"But the Sherriff of Nottingham's a bad guy, you aren't a bad guy," Ava interjected.

"Which is why I recruited our Robin Hood, instead of arresting him," among other reasons, Coulson explained, as Ava got in close and go the hug she wanted. Heartwarming stuff, to be hugged and believed to be the good guy. Especially after a particularly unpleasant scene involving recruiting a teenager and handling the very, very angry locals.

She offered him his badge back.

He took it for a moment, then smiled and passed it back, "Hold onto it for me, will you?"

Ava looked down and accepted it, and the silent promise it bore, back, then went off to finish her homework before Weaver arrived, as the scientist's patience for failure to understand was infinite, her patience for failure to try was nonexistent.

"What's wrong?" Andrew asked, joining his wife opposite Coulson and seeing the tension in her shoulders.

"Coulson decided to leave me here. And he got an arrow through the arm for it," May said through gritted teeth.

"You got hit with an arrow?" Andrew asked, concern rapidly shading into amusement at the distinct lack of any visible injury or impairment.

"I certainly didn't recruit Mr. Barton because he was funny."

"Don't you have body armor?" Andrew asked.

"Not for the forearms, no."

"But you did have guns, right?"

"Yes."

"And lots of other agents with guns. I mean, just because you foolishly left May behind, doesn't mean that you went in alone or anything, right?" May nodded appreciatively at that comment.

"There were many of us, yes. Which is why no one was killed and we caught him. Like I said, he was good and now he's good and working for us. Win-win for all concerned. And if May feels the need to beat him up, he'll be taking a year of classes over at the Operation's Academy, I'm sure she can create an opportunity."

"It's not _him_ who needs a good whack," May muttered, just on the edge of audibility.

Coulson did not ask her to speak up. "Any changes here?"

"Besides Ava mastering fractions and deciding she hates Tolkein? Not too much. Despite your concerns, Pym stayed on his side of the campus. I think he knows we're having him followed though."

"I hope so, that's half the reason we're doing it," Coulson muttered.

"Well, I've got to get to my next session, but I'll see you folks back here for dinner?" Andrew asked.

Foster yelled in from the actual lab space, "Ava got to choose, so we're having empanadas again, which means someone—NOT MAY—has to start cooking pretty soon. And I swear if even one crumb ends up in the lab area, I'm going to use the vibration generators while you're all sleeping. I don't want to hear about how empanadas come with their own container, no food in the lab area!"

"Well, you heard the man. And don't worry, I'll have Johnson handle the food prep. _He_ ," Coulson flicked a knife-edged glance over at May, "can cook."

May's response glance promised vengeance, but Coulson was too glad he was home to worry about it.

 **XXXXX**

"Doctor, this chamber is a good step, but we need something that does more than stabilize her. The continued pain is unacceptable."

Dr. Foster had his head in his hands and took Coulson's comment like a bullet to the chest. "I know, but I just don't know what else I can do," he looked at Ava, relaxing in the chamber which flashed and shook slightly, it should have been horribly distracting (and it was), but to Ava the brief cessation of worry and pain was more relaxing than all the still darkness in the universe. "The chamber is palliative care, nothing more."

"Palliative? I thought you said she wasn't in any danger," Coulson said, his voice going dangerously flat.

"She isn't. Yet. But from the last scans it's clear she's…degrading. It's slow. So slow the first scans didn't even pick it up."

"I see," Coulson's eyes ran over the sleeping Ava. "How does this chamber work?"

"As I've explained—"

"In simple English, doctor," Coulson said.

"Okay, she passes through stuff because she vibrates at a different frequency than the rest of the material universe. Think of her shifting like sound waves and the chamber like an attempt at active noise control, like you folks use in your secret meetings to keep people from overhearing. The problem is, we're never going to get perfect matching and her 'frequency' so to speak, is shifting, so I have to keep adjusting the chamber."

"Vibration's the problem is it?" Coulson smiled, "Tell me doctor, have you ever heard of Vibranium?"

 **XXXXX**

"Sir, Agents Garrett and Sitwell here to see you," one of May's handpicked guards said from the entrance to the lab area.

Coulson wasn't on duty, so he was hanging around the lab, trying to convince Ava that World War II era comic books, were, in fact, as cool as the video games he'd picked up for her and which she was running off the lab's literal million dollar mainframe.

"Well, that's an odd pairing," he muttered to himself as he straightened himself up a little and went to meet them at the guard post just inside the airlock. Ava tagged along, because while comic books could not match video games for coolness, anything that threatened to take Coulson away was so un-cool that it outweighed even an infinite amount of coolness. Or so Coulson liked to speculate.

"Well, this is an odd pairing," he said as he arrived to find Garrett and Sitwell awaiting him. John Garrett appeared to have gone from eighteen directly to forty and didn't seem to have aged a day since the last time Coulson had been in the same room as him, almost three years ago. Thick brown hair had stopped receding, leaving him with a high forehead and a tough-guy's face. Sitwell, despite being nearly five years younger than Coulson and therefore eight or so years younger than Garrett, appeared to match the older man's age. Though that might have been an artifact of his shaved head. The younger man's gold wire-frame glasses made him look like the nerd he most definitely was. This made him a man rather after Coulson's own heart, though Sitwell's Spanish, as befit a Honduran-American was actually quite good, especially in comparison to Coulson's.

"We're not here together," Garrett said with a disdainful glance at the analyst.

"I'm here because I finally finished the analysis you asked for. Didn't turn up much, but the full report's here," Sitwell passed over the papers in a plain manila file. "It's the only one, like you asked."

"Thank you, Jasper."

The junior agent craned his head around the guard post and glanced at Ava, "And who's this cutie?"

"Oh, where are my manners? Ava Starr, this is Jasper Sitwell, a giant nerd and a friend, and John Garrett, who once arrested a man who'd given himself lion's paws for hands."

"I don't get an 'and a friend'?" Garrett pouted at him.

"Not off that story," Coulson answered. "Gentlemen, this is Ava Starr, who is nine," he paused just long enough for Ava's mouth to open, "and four-fifths and is entirely adorable, even if she doesn't have great taste in literature. She is under SHIELD's protection. And mine," Ava looked down at the floor, filled with some emotion Coulson couldn't entirely identify. "Except from teachers irritated that homework hasn't been completed," he added and Ava bounced off to finish her homework.

Coulson nodded slightly to Sitwell, thanking him for delivering the analysis, then turned to Garrett. "So, what are you doing here?" he asked, leading the other agent out and up to his new office.

"I got some downtime, so Fury decided to share the wealth and send me out here to teach the junior badasses how to actually kick-ass."

Coulson flicked through the papers Sitwell had passed over, "Is that Garrett for 'I'm giving a lecture to the Operations Academy?'"

"Much more than a lecture, Phil. A full week of prep and short exercises, then three days of urban and three days of rural combat runs. I'm going to run those poor bastards into the ground," Garrett smirked.

"If you're looking for help keeping up with a bunch of 18-20 year olds, you've come to the wrong person. May may be able to help you," he smiled to himself at the very minor wordplay.

Garrett snorted. "Like I need the help. Nah, I was just wondering if you wanted to grab a beer while I'm in town."

Coulson gave Garrett a quick glance, they were friendly enough, having worked together a dozen times, but Garrett wasn't exactly a social butterfly. Stopping by to invite Coulson out for a beer wasn't his style. Stopping by with some beers for a chat might be. "Sure, sure, what's your schedule like?" he asked, deciding to play it out and see what the other agent wanted.

"I'll be done this week at 5:00, next week we'll be playing all the time."

"Tommorow? Sixish? At the Boiler Room here in Sci-Tech?" Coulson offered.

"The nerds have their own bar?"

"I'm sure you'll be able to find it, since you're _so_ impressive."

Garrett grinned back at him, always unable to turn away from a challenge. "I'll see you at six," he said, turning back just as Coulson finally reached his office.

"Why was I coming up here, again?"

 **XXXXX**

"All the vibranium SHIELD has _ever_ possessed went into Captain America's shield."

"Thank you, Jasper."

"SHIELD's been looking for the Captain since he went down in '45," Sitwell added.

"Thank you, Jasper."

"Every artifact we find gets reviewed and _none_ of them contain any vibranium."

"Thank you, Sitwell."

Jasper took the hint and himself out.

"SHIELD doesn't have any vibranium," he said to May, who'd been leaning against a bookcase, just out of Sitwell's line of sight, not for any particular reason, other than her own amusement.

"Apparently not."

"So we look outside SHIELD. Stark Industries got theirs from Africa."

"Anything more precise than a continent?"

"Present day Uganda. And yes, it is the area where the LRA and government forces have been fighting, but their presently talking. Mostly."

"Hmmm…well, we're not exactly trained or equipped for mineral investigation and extraction."

"Nope, so we work the sources who are. If SHIELD knew about anything, we'd know, so let's have some conversations with outside players. Local intelligence agencies, mining companies, NGOs and aid organizations, criminal groups, anyone in Uganda, or any surrounding country."

"That's going to be a _lot_ of work."

"Fortunately, there are a _lot_ of Koenigs who are really at their best over the phone," Coulson noted.

 **XXXXX**

"It's a safe the size of a _room_ , it's practically made for your girl, Coulson," Garrett argued. The fact that Garrett knew about Ava was not something that thrilled Coulson. That was what he'd wanted to discuss over a beer those few weeks back, the rumors that Coulson's pet project had a working prototype, as he put it. And what that project was. Coulson's lack of denial was all the answer the senior agent had needed to start getting excited about the possibilities.

Coulson glanced across the table at the other agent. "I'm thrilled to discover you found a way to bring a room-sized safe to Sci-Tech. Do share with the rest of us."

"Obviously she'd have to go to it, but we're going in with three full teams, it'll be perfectly safe."

Coulson gave the older agent a dour look. "It'll be reasonably safe and besides, bullets go right through her!"

May winced almost imperceptibly. "Garrett, if you want a good argument for bringing a nine year old on a military mission, 'she probably won't get hurt if she gets shot' is not it." Garrett's own specialist stood behind him, posture mirroring May's, Rumlow was a dangerous man, but he hadn't caught Fury's eye the way Garrett, Coulson and May had, leaving the younger man with Garrett as an supervising officer (SO). Coulson almost pitied the man who stood there in complete silence, but his wounded pride at May's comment was still unprofessional.

"Then you guys can come along, make sure she's all right."

May's eyes rested on Coulson for a moment, saw the tiny shake of his head, "No," she said.

"We're supposed to shield civilians, not hide behind them," Coulson added.

Garrett's glare was harsh. "She stopped being a civilian the moment she walked through her first wall. You know that."

Coulson met Garrett's glare evenly, while May and Rumlow shifted a few steps to his right, her left, leaving the table not between them. "I told you, John, Ava Starr is under SHIELD's protection. And mine."

"I've got orders to get into that vault, Phil. Those orders come directly from Fury, on behalf of SHIELD."

"John, it's like you're deliberately ignoring the second half of my statement. You've usually got better tactical awareness than that."

"Phil, we both know you aren't going to ignore an order from Fury."

"Fury didn't give me any orders."

"Phil, an order from Fury is an order to SHIELD and his order is to get into that _damn_ vault!" Garrett said, snapping to his feet, hands slamming down on the metal of the table, going for intimidation.

"And the great John Garrett can't do that without the help of a nine year old child?" Coulson asked, voice sweat as candied acid, not responding at all to the Garrett's trumpeting.

"Not without risking the destruction of everything in there."

"This is far as I'll go, if you modify your plan to secure the site, and I mean secure, not the little snatch-and-run you're planning, then I'll ask Ava if she's willing to do it," Garrett opened his mouth. " _If_ you can come up with an explanation for what exactly she's supposed to do inside the vault _and_ why she won't suffer the 'destruction of everything' in the vault."

"That's a much bigger operation."

"You know what they say, bigger is better."

May gave Coulson an incredulous glance, very deliberately giving Rumlow what really looked like an opening. The other agent didn't take it, suggesting he was either smarter than he looked, or Garrett hadn't signaled him.

Garrett snorted. "I'll run it past command and see if I can get approval for more teams, but it'll be expensive and you know how the penny-pinchers don't like that."

"And I know how much the PR folks won't like news leaking about SHIELD using children," Coulson countered.

Garrett nodded slightly at the threat and got up. "I'll pass it along," he brushed down the leather he wore in place of Coulson's suit jacket. "I gotta say, you've changed Coulson, there was a time you never would have threatened SHIELD like that."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Coulson was the very picture of innocence.

"Of course not," Garrett agreed with a smile. "Still, fatherhood looks good on you."

Garrett ducked out with Rumlow watching his back and never turning his own until the doors were shut behind him, freeing May from her defensive posture. "Fatherhood. What an ass that man is," Coulson muttered and continued to mutter.

May ignored his filibuster and glanced around the conference room they'd borrowed, checking everywhere Rumlow and Garrett had touched for bugs, and adjusted the active sound cancellation to a slightly narrower field. "Seriously, Coulson? Taking Ava into the field? And threatening Garrett? What are you playing at?"

"Giving Fury an excuse to overrule the South Africa Office and give us the Intelligencia case. It can be a reward for Ava's help, or to shut me up, I really do not care. We need vibranium and the Intelligencia are the only lead we've found. I do not care about the political situation is South Africa, or its impact on the local SHIELD office. I do not care about inter-SHIELD or international squabbles. If they can't, or won't break the case and get me some f—vibranium, then we'll do it ourselves," Coulson said, the seamless calm he'd worked so hard to project cracking away, letting May see the fury at the core of his being. May did not wince at that pun, proving her control was truly superhuman.

"Be careful how far you push Fury. He pushes back."

The calm returned, "I prefer to think of it as helping him come to the right choice."

 **XXXXX**

Ava looked out of the chamber at the clock. Two hours in the chamber and she'd have an hour of sufficient solidity that May would let her train with the others, contact, not forms. It was _hard_ to reform inside something, which was why didn't swim anymore, but May hated unnecessary chances. It had been a _lot_ of work, and nagging, to get May to agree to let her join them, she wasn't going to endanger it by pushing her luck. Any more than she already had when she begged to join them, then instinctively used her abilities back before May had put the time restriction on training.

No one had been hurt, and it _had_ worked, she'd flickered her leg through Joy's block and knocked her down. She'd been so happy. So proud. Then May had talked to her. May didn't use any more words, or expressions than usual, but she managed to communicate her absolute contempt for someone who would risk killing a comrade to win a training bout.

So she spent two hours in the chamber, usually working on her homework, reading and watching television, for one hour of contact. That was the reason. Not because it hurt so much less in there. She was used to the pain. She was tough. She was. And she'd learn how to be strong. May would teach her. May was teaching her. Nothing hurt May.

This time however, Phil was with her. He couldn't be in the chamber with her, it wasn't good for normal people, but he was sitting right outside, with a chessboard that exactly matched the one she had inside the chamber. When they first started playing, he'd surrendered his queen, both rooks and a knight and still won. Now he only surrendered his queen, a rook and three pawns and they played almost even.

He'd gained control of the center of the board and his knights were threatening to put her in position of sacrificing her queen or rook. It was moderately infuriating that he was able to keep ahead of her while all the while chatting blithely about the latest, updated, Captain America comics and why she would probably like them if she read them.

Instead she was on the twentieth book in the Babysitter's Club series, when she wasn't reading Tom Clancy books and imagining they had something to do with what Phil and May did when they weren't with her.

She liked making Phil read the Babysitter's Club books to her, because she knew he secretly liked them. She liked making Phil read the Clancy books to her, because she knew he _obviously_ loathed them. Either way, she got entertainment, plus she got to relax and be carried along by the words. If Phil was in a really good mood, he might do the voices too. When that happened, sometimes she would get so caught up in the story that she didn't notice how much she hurt.

 **XXXXX**

When the local county deputies intercepted the guards taking Ava to play in the gym and insisted she be handed over, they contacted May, who was at a staff meeting for all Sci-Tech personnel. She arrived about three minutes ahead of Coulson, who'd been in town shopping for presents and supplies for Ava's upcoming tenth birthday party. The guards had followed their orders and hadn't let Ava be taken. May had followed her inclination and physically stood between the quartet of officers and her guards, close enough that she'd be able to close the remaining distance before they could draw their weapons.

The officers attempt to convince the guards met with stonewalling refusal to take any action without orders. Their attempt to convince May met with a silent, challenging stare that took the wind out of their sails. Their attempt to speak to Coulson was more successful, on one level. With Coulson on one side of them and May and a pair of heavily armed and armored SHIELD agents on the other, they were beginning to feel a bit outmatched.

"Let me see if I understand correctly," he said, voice a blade coated in honey. "You received a report of a child being held by a shadowy group, without any custodial rights to her, and that you could intercept the child at this time, in this place?" his hand moved slightly, May's hand moved slightly and the guards spread out, preparing for an ambush which probably wasn't coming.

The senior officer nodded slightly. "And look, there's a little girl in the hands of a bunch of goons with tactical weapons and body armor!"

"On the basis of this report, you chose to leave your jurisdiction entirely to investigate this report? My goodness, those must have been some mighty big strings this…reporter pulled."

"What the fuck are you talking about? We're still within our—"

"This is a SHIELD facility, it has the same extraterritorial status as an embassy, or the UN Headquarters," Coulson's voice shifted from lecturing to threatening as he took a step closer, driving the officers back towards May. "You have no jurisdiction here. You have no right to carry weapons here. You have no rights, at all here, beyond those I choose to extend to you as a courtesy. Now, who told you to come here?"

"We don't know, all right? It all came through the Sherriff," one of the other deputies admitted.

"I see," Coulson stepped back, suddenly the soul of courtesy again. "Well, May, do pay the Sheriff a visit and give him a copy of the paperwork transferring Ms. Starr to SHIELD's custody," she nodded, order and implied order received. "As Ms. Starr is an orphan with no next-of-kin, it's signed by the relevant state officials of the United Kingdom and Argentina. We do, in fact, have legal as well as actual custody of Ms. Starr and will continue to until and unless she asks to leave. Ms. Starr, would you like to leave?"

Ava, who'd scooted closer when the guards moved out and was now standing right next to May, mimicking the agent's pose, shook her head slightly.

"Then there you have it, gentlemen. I'll show you out."

"We're not going anywhere just on your say-so," one of the deputies managed.

There was a moment of frozen silence as violence crystallized in the air, with May and Coulson preparing to strike first. Then the reinforcements Coulson had requested arrived and the deputies found themselves not merely outclassed and outarmed, but outnumbered. "We're not going anywhere either. So if you find anything I've said was false, you can always come back," Coulson smiled sweetly, "perhaps with a few…dozen more men."

Exercise time was not cancelled. And Ava got to work with both Phil and May, but then they got busy for the rest of the day.

 **XXXXX**

May found Coulson in his office later that day and handed him a folder full of documents. The evidence was all there, but all he really needed was the confirmation of the name she'd put on the file, Pym.

 ** _Author's Note: Well…_**


	5. 1993—Leaving Home, Just Taking a Trip

**Chapter 5—1993—Leaving Home, Just Taking A Trip**

Fury showing up without warning was not an uncommon event, in and of itself. Fury showing up without warning at a child's birthday parting was an uncommon event. "Agent Coulson," he said, having been passed through their security like a ghost.

Coulson turned away from where Ava was playing with her new CD player and the collection of CDs with Disney soundtracks, with her headphones on. She was mostly ignoring the adults as she was in the middle of a world-class sulk, what with May having to be out of town wrapping up an investigation into a potential bad seed on campus.

Ava's social circle was small and skewed entirely towards adults. With May out of town, it was basically the usual crew minus May, but plus cake, ice-cream and presents. And now plus Director Nick Fury, in his usual black-with-SHIELD's-insignia motif. His pitch black eye-patch was just a hair darker than his skin, deliberately not matching, and one brown eye didn't seem to move at all, but somehow saw everything. Towering over everyone else in the room, the force of his personality meant that those two, innocent words had everyone in the room (except Ava who couldn't hear anything but the music) looking at him.

Coulson moved over to his former SO and current commander. "Yes, sir?"

"Garrett's pretty pissed."

"Garrett's always pissed, it's part—well, most, of his charm."

"Sounds like he's got cause this time."

"Because I didn't jump to help him carry out his mission? I have my own missions," his eyes shifted to Ava, who was, against her will, tapping her feet in time to the music, "as you know."

"Any update on those missions?" Fury asked, as he drew the other man into the security office just inside the airlock.

A wave of Coulson's hand dismissed the guards who didn't have clearance for this discussion and the interior door shut before he answered. "Vibranium is our best bet, but the South African Office's leadership of the Intelligencia Investigation isn't exactly inspiring confidence that we'll get what we need any time soon."

"I've seen your request to take over the investigation, but helping the girl is not the only mission you have. Any progress on duplicating her powers? Or defending against them?"

"Some on blocking them, denser materials and particle barriers help, but we're limited in our testing as moving through them hurts her and increases the speed of her decline. On duplication, we can't do any real testing until we know how to cure her. We've both seen what happens when you unleash something you can't stop."

"So, all roads lead to you taking over the Intelligencia Investigation," Fury noted.

"Yes, sir."

"You've made some friends here over the last year, but you've also burned a lot of bridges with folks trying to get access to the girl and not just people like Pym, or Garrett. It looks like you're putting the kid ahead of the mission."

"No, sir."

Fury stared at him for a moment, his sole remaining eye measuring Coulson, "I'm going to give you the investigation, but you're way out on a limb here and Garrett's not the only senior agent who likes to wield an axe."

"Yes, sir."

"Get it done, get results and get me what's in that vault."

"Yes, sir."

"And get back in there before they eat all the cake without you," he concluded with an actual smile.

"Yes, sir," Coulson smiled back at him and turned away, obedient to his command.

"Oh, and Coulson?"

"Yes, sir?" he turned back.

Fury produced a singles sheet of rumpled paper and passed it over, "Try not to cost me any more geniuses. They don't grow on trees you know."

"Yes, sir," Coulson answered, examining the one page executive summary of the review of Hank Pym's actions in regards to Ava Starr.

 **XXXXX**

Hank Pym read when he walked from his car to his lab. He also read while he was being driven from his home to his work. And while he was at home. And while he was at work. And all other times when he wasn't writing, sciencing, or fighting. It was therefore not entirely surprising that he didn't see Coulson until he almost walked into the other man.

"You're in my way, agent," he noted without looking up from the papers he was carrying, though he did stop walking.

"I know, Hank," Coulson replied.

"Chief Pym, thank you."

"Not anymore."

Now he did look up. "What?"

"You are fired. Your lab has been reclaimed by SHIELD, your personal belongings are," an agent in full body armor, but only armed with a pistol rather than the more standard rifle came out holding a cardboard box, "ah, yes, here."

"What?" Pym repeated.

"You exposed classified information to an external party, endangering a protected SHIELD asset. Ms. Starr is under SHIELD protection, as you knew when you chose to report her presence to the local Sherriff and attempt to induce him to take her into custody—"

"You can hardly—even if I had done what you're claiming—you couldn't fire me for reporting illegal actions, there are laws protecting whistleblowers," Pym said, very aware of the presence of the armed agent, who passed over the cardboard box, leaving him with his hands full and Coulson and his little friend with theirs very, very free.

"Which don't apply to SHIELD. Even if they did, there's nothing illegal about providing a homeless, kinless girl with a home and family. All the legal steps were taken before we ever got the lab built, as we would have explained to you had you asked, but you didn't. You assumed you knew best."

"As opposed to the man keeping her locked up in—"

"Did you know that a team broke into the remnants of the lab we found her in? Penetrated SHIELD surveillance and murdered two agents who tried to stop them?"

"No," Pym admitted.

"Do you think the local Sherriff could protect her from people who could do that?" Coulson's voice was a low whisper, promising violence.

Pym dropped the box and his papers, as he needed his hands free and Coulson answered his own question. "Of course not, all you thought about was that they couldn't protect her from you. Or at least that's what the review board concluded, before deciding you should simply be fired, not interrogated, or assassinated."

There was a moment of silence after that, then Coulson relented slightly.

"Last time we spoke, I said we were colleagues, not enemies. We are no longer colleagues, but we aren't enemies either. Yet. But I'm coming to the very end of my patience with you, _Hank_."

"You can dress this up in all the fancy words you like, _Agent_ , but I know bullshit when I hear it. You run around playing bureaucratic politics to undercut me, but the moment I speak to someone, I'm out? Well, you beat me to the punch, at least at politics. But I know what this is really about and you and all your little buddies can steal everything in that lab, you'll _never_ get your hands on my real work!" the wind went out of the older man for a moment, "But you win about the girl, whatever you're up to with that little girl in that locked room, you've obviously got enough support to be able to get away with it and I sure can't stop you."

"You know, _Hank_ ," Coulson emphasized the lack of title adorning the older man's name, "I thought you were just a paranoid, arrogant, inquisitive asshole. I never realized what a cowardly, or contemptable little worm you truly are," his voice cut through Pym's response. "Because you either truly believe that false claim you just implied, in which case walking away is so cowardly I can't believe you were ever a SHIELD agent, or you're a contemptable worm who tries to use children as weapons. Either way, I am gratified that the review board saw sense and has removed you from this organization," Pym opened his voice to respond, but Coulson turned away, "Thomas, Keller, escort _Hank_ off SHIELD property. Your credentials have been cancelled. Any attempt to access any SHIELD property will result in your being arrested for trespassing. Or espionage. Or being a cowardly floater of a turd who refuses to understand when and where he's not wanted."

May appeared at his side the moment Pym was gone, having been in position to eliminate the ex-agent if he didn't handle matters in an…appropriate, or at least non-violent, manner. "You really should have let Personnel handle this," she said, making a rare recommendation.

"Too much risk that he might focus on his interest in Ava as the source of his troubles rather than on me. Or, even better, someone else who wasn't me, but I couldn't think of a way to do that," Coulson argued.

"Ah, good, so the incredible shrinking man is personally angry with you. You are truly a tactician without peer," she said, in the perfectly flat deadpan which was her preferred mode of communicating sarcasm.

"Yes, it would be a terrible shame if he were to try something stupid and get shot in the head," Coulson agreed.

"Setting yourself up as a target for a mad scientist with access to shrinking technology…I believe I may have discovered a few peers for your tactical acumen after all. Ava, Claudia, Jafar, _Elmo."_

"Hey! Ava's getting a lot better," Coulson interjected.

May very loudly did not roll her eyes at him.

 **XXXXX**

"Said I'd do it, I'll do it!" Ava snapped.

Coulson nodded and stepped back and resisted the urge to remind her one more time to place the device, then go intangible and get out to ensure that any booby trap couldn't hit her. May's quiet confidence was going down a lot better than his concern and overprotectiveness.

She walked through the door of the vault, Coulson had hoped a wall or the ceiling or floor would be less dense, but that had not been the case and so she was going to walk through the hardened steel, through the explosives that would destroy the vault's contents if they tried to drill, or blast it and through the many, many objects that filled the vault, until she found a clear spot and rematerialized. The pain was astounding. She'd walked through a few things as part of the testing back when she first arrived at the lab, but this was the worst it had ever been. She lay there, mostly still and silently crying for a long minute, but no one came to help her. No one could come to help her until she helped herself. Slowly she sat up and looked around.

The vault was not set up to be opened from the inside, but the machinery was easily accessible, so all Ava had to do was manhandle the device SHIELD had prepared into place to force it open. That would have been easier if she'd been older than 10 and weighed somewhat more than the device itself. As it was, she managed to lift it into position on the third try, then pushed the button and stepped back.

She should have gotten out, but the thought of facing that pain again was too much, instead she simply stood still, forcing herself to shift, to bend, to be not-there in that indescribable way. The door opened, things did not explode and she walked out, into a concerned hug from Coulson and an approving smile from May.

Garrett's men were already moving in to secure the vault and remove its contents, all the results of the Maggia's illegal activities in Rome over the last half-century were in SHIELD hands now. For the gold, cash, art and other nonsense, a return to the proper owner was in store (if they could be identified, if not, the World Security Council liked it when SHIELD acquired resources from other sources, so long as it wasn't enough to make SHIELD start getting uppity with them). But the real prize were the hardcopy blackmail files, microfilm, handwritten letters, pictures, all the means by which the Maggia 'convinced' courts, police and governments throughout Europe to look the other way. SHIELD had it all, at least if they got out alive.

Garrett himself stopped by to congratulate Ava on her good work. Ava damn near beamed, even though she was almost a day away from getting back into her chamber, as it couldn't travel with them. However, pain was a constant, accomplishment was far rarer.

Coulson, for whom pain was a relative rarity and accomplishment a constant was more concerned with getting out before the Maggia managed a counter-strike (not that Maggia footsoldiers could match SHIELD, but once they realized the vault had been penetrated, blowing up the entire building became a real possibility.

They got out alive and without incident, though Garrett and Co. would have a harder time of it.

 **XXXXX**

"We'll be back soon, Ava," Coulson said.

"Keep up with your exercises," May put in.

"Bill, Andrew and Anne will still be here, as will Richardson and the other security staff. You'll be safe until we get back," Coulson added, though he wasn't entirely sure if he was trying to reassure the pouting Ava, or himself.

"Why can't I come?" Ava asked sullenly.

Coulson wasn't going to bring up the major reason, the danger, so instead went with boredom, "We'll just be doing oversight, very boring stuff, plus you're all settled in here and you've got work to do, right?"

"Also, South Africa is no place for a girl with one black parent and one white parent. Not at the moment at least. Someone would say something, or try to do something. And then I'd beat them unconscious and Coulson would ruin their lives. Entertaining as that would be, we probably shouldn't expose you to such disgraceful people if we don't have to," May added.

"I could handle it," Ava said.

"I could wear shoes on my hands and gloves on my feet, doesn't mean it's a smart thing to do," Coulson pointed out.

Ava did not laugh at this attempt at humor, but she emulated May and gave him the one eyebrow lift.

"We'll be back as soon as we can," he assured her.

"I'll be here," she said, infusing those three words with as much melodrama as a ten year old could, which was quite a lot and stalked off, declining the hug he offered, but stealing one from May.

"Ouch," Coulson said, only half joking.

"She'll get over it," May reassured him.

"I got over Hawkeye shooting an arrow into me, doesn't mean I forgot, or that the scar's gone away."

"Oh please, no ligament damage, no blood vessels or bones hit, that boy can shoot, if only we could get him to use a gun he'd be a real asset to SHIELD."

Coulson frowned slightly, "He's already an asset."

"Only half the one he could be."

"May, I hardly think you're one to talk about artificially challenging yourself. At least he carries _a_ ranged weapon by choice."

May frowned at him, "Aren't we going somewhere?"

"Well, that wasn't a graceful change of subject," Coulson noted to May's back as she was walking off and leaving him behind. He hurried to catch up. "Grumpy."

She glanced back at him, "Dopey."

"Hey!"

"Aren't we naming dwarves?" May asked, all innocence.

"Please, like I'd need help with that after the last week." 

"I do not know what she likes about that movie," May agreed, shuddering slightly at the recollection of listening to _Whistle While You Work_ over and over and _over_ again.

"I'm just waiting for her to start calling us dwarves. After all, we took her in."

"Well, Doc would obviously be Doc."

"Weaver…I guess would be Grumpy, at least when Ava doesn't do her homework."

May snorted, eloquently communicating her belief as to who would actually be Grumpy amongst their little gang. "Sleepy can only be Richardson. I swear that man ducks out the moment his shift ends."

"Which makes you…Bashful? Best I can do, as there's not a Stoic. Now there's a good name for a dwarf…"

"No Tolkien! That makes you Happy."

"Pym can be Dopey."

"And Ava's Sneezy,"

Coulson's eyes narrowed, "Isn't Ava Snow White?"

"Not in my version of the story."


	6. 1994—Building A Home, Breaking Men

Chapter 6—1994—Building A Home, Breaking Men

 ** _Author's Note: Thanks for the review Killjoys4life, I appreciate the feedback. On the question of timing, I'm pushing everything a bit earlier than Ava's actress's age would have us because the MCU's timelines are pretty messy to me (and because I wanted Pym still around for this and because it makes the timing work out for some other things later on). We know Howard Stark was there when Hank Pym left SHIELD and Howard died in 1991 in the MCU, as Elihas was kicked out by Pym, he presumably left sometime before Pym left SHIELD. Now, it could have been years between him leaving SHIELD and the accident, but it read to me more like a rushed attempt soon after leaving._**

 ** _So, basically, I'm splitting the difference between what the MCU suggests which I think would put Ava in her mid-thirties and what the actress's age would suggest which would put the accident in about 2000 (assuming I'm guessing the age she was when the accident occurred correctly). I'll try to signpost anything which connects to anything in the MCU and I'll mostly be trying to follow their timelines. At least for things which actually have dates in the films as opposed to in other places. Thanks again!  
_**

 ** _Also, this chapter came out...long, sorry about that._** ** _  
_**

Coulson glanced around then table at the lead officers assigned to the investigation, Jeannette "Jean" Myburgh, Deputy Chief of the South African Office, his connection to the South African SHIELD office, Buzwe "Buzz" Dalasile, down from Sudan, his connection to the local SHIELD offices which weren't in South Africa, as even in SHIELD there were political issues between South Africa and the rest of Africa, were the leaders of the two main, and competing, SHIELD groups investigating the international criminal organization known as Intelligencia.

A dozen other agents, analysts and liaisons to the local intelligence agencies, filled the room, but those two were the only players in the game. Aside from himself and May. He sat at the head of the table surrounded by paperwork, May stood behind him, leaning against the back wall, surrounded by an aura of threat as palpable as Coulson's paperwork.

"So, what you're telling me is that after more than a year of investigation, we know that Intelligencia is a criminal organization with ties to mining interests, rebels, arms traders and smugglers, specializing in the illicit movement of anything and anyone, anywhere within the African continent and laundering the goods, money, or people that they move such that when they pop up at their destination they're completely clean?" Coulson asked, reading off a sheet of paper before him.

Jean and Buzz broke off glaring at one another to glare at him. "Yes," Jean said simply. She'd come up in the South African National Intelligence Service's decidedly non-formal branches and though she wasn't implicated in anything too unsavory, the upcoming elections and probable end of the de Klerk administration was probably going to make it impossible to continue in her current post.

"Yes, sir," Buzz agreed, the agent had been part of the Ethiopian Army back when they were getting their training from the Soviets and Cubans and were decidedly formal. No one could prove he'd done anything at all during the famine or the subsequent conflict with the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, but there was probably a reason he wasn't working out of the Ethiopian Office. Still, the unpleasantness between the other African offices and the South African Office wasn't the only reason he was here, despite having only been in SHIELD for three years.

"Ah, I apologize, this," he waved the piece of paper he'd been reading from, "is from the request you filed last year when you wanted to open this investigation. What, _exactly_ , have you learned since then?"

"Well, we learned that someone else is after them too. And whoever it is has no compunction about blowing up entire camp sites to keep us from getting our hands on any intel," Jean put in.

"And that they've got better intelligence then we do on Intelligencia, sir," Buzz added with a glare at Jean, the intelligence agent.

"But we don't know who, or why, or how. Nor have we captured any of them. Is that correct?"

Shamefaced silence was the only answer to that question.

"And the reason for that, when we go through these files," he dropped his hand to the massive mound of paperwork the investigation had produced this far, "what do we find is the cause of this abject failure?"

"Miscommunication," May said from behind him. Which was plainly true, intel simply wasn't passing between the South African Office and the rest of the African offices without going up to big SHIELD and that delay was deadly. "And incompetence." Which was also simply true as both factions had tried to run raids inside the territory of the other, instead of delegating to the local office, only to arrive too late.

"Miscommunication and incompetence," Coulson repeated, voice cold as ice, then it dropped to a whisper, forcing everyone to lean in to hear him. "This is unacceptable. And it will stop. Now," his voice returned to its normal volume. "All intelligence comes to me. I will give orders to local SHIELD offices. If those orders are not promptly and properly carried out then you," his eyes moved slowly around the room, "all of you, will find out exactly what I have no…compunction about doing. And I promise you, we will demonstrate that Intelligencia and their unknown rivals have nothing on SHIELD, in any arena. Now, get to work."

 **XXXXX**

"This isn't a coincidence."

"No," May agreed.

"Three operations, three times they got there first. Even with SHIELD fast deployment out of regional bases."

May nodded slightly as Coulson continued to talk.

"All we got for our improved efficiency was a dozen agents injured and two killed trying to catch these assholes."

May nodded slightly.

"But we aren't running into burnt out camps from where the assholes are hitting Intelligencia long before we get there. It's always right before."

May nodded, even more slightly.

"They could be pulling from the same sources."

May raised her eyebrow.

"But no other organization has the sort of international connections we do."

May's eyebrow stayed up.

"It's not even subtle."

May's eyebrow began to go down.

"We have a leak."

May nodded.

"And it is…"

May leaned forward slightly.

"Damn, I was hoping _you_ knew."

May leaned back. "So, what's the plan?"

"Follow protocol, much though I hate to do it."

"That will make things more complicated," May noted.

"And delay our return to Sci-Tech," Coulson agreed. "Still, make the call."

"Right."

 **XXXXX**

"Victoria Hand," the only member of the Internal Security team not wearing full tactical gear introduced herself, extending one hand to Coulson.

"Phil Coulson," he said, taking it as his eyes flickering over her form, measuring her. She had a good four inches on him and her hands weren't entirely smooth, but lacked the callouses of an Operations Academy graduate. She was Communications Academy, a trained analyst, as the glasses suggested. Black hair framed her face, the only splash of color was the single streak of red flashing through her hair on the left side of her face. Pretty enough, but not trying to enhance that, with the expensive business suit and ice cold demeanor, she was clearly going for the Ice Queen affect, but the red hair dye was interesting and out of the role she'd cast herself in.

"You've got a rat problem, Agent Coulson," she noted, evaluating him in turn. Despite his shorter height, he had at least thirty pounds of muscle on her. The sunglasses he wore in the hot African sun hid his eyes, as his cheap suit hid the muscle, but she could tell he was observing her closely. Despite attending the Communications Academy, the callouses on his hand and the almost hidden muscle made it clear he'd had other training since. He didn't bother trying to play strength or dominance games with the handshake. He was clearly going for the Consummate Professional affect, and playing the role well enough she couldn't get much off him. More interesting was the minor repositioning which occurred as she took his hand, his specialist moved very minorly away from Coulson, shifting so that if he pulled Hand in to use as a shield, May could attack Hand's escort. It was an interesting thing, revealing both confidence that Coulson could take her and a deep protectiveness on the part of May, as well as the instinctive bond of a pair who'd worked together for a long time.

"Does that make you the exterminator in this scenario, Agent Hand?"

"Sounds better than rat-catcher. Less accurate though. We'll want the traitor alive. I trust no one knows you called us in?"

"Of course not. You're reinforcements to provide tactical analysis and support given the losses we've suffered."

"Good enough. I've got local offices tracking communications, but if I just order general surveillance on everyone on the investigation someone's going to notice, then the cat's out of the bag."

"We've got cats, rats, rat-catchers and exterminators…I think we may have gotten a bit lost in our metaphors here."

Hand updated her mental model of his affect from Consummate Professional to Harmless Suit and didn't change her evaluation of the man himself in any way. For a moment she considered making a comment about metaphor, idiom and the difference between the two, then decided that no one carried that she'd got an English degree from Smith, before going to the SHIELD Communications Academy. "Regardless, we come bearing gifts," one of her agents stepped forward, passing over targeting packages. "Pass these out, one to each of our players. Full aerial surveillance is in place at each of these locations, we'll know where they hit."

"Invoke operational compartmentalization, switch security on our communications and give one package to Buzz, one to Jean and see which target gets hit?" Coulson asked.

"Exactly. Even if the surveillance doesn't ID our traitor, we can at least narrow down the suspect pool."

"Won't they be suspicious when there's nothing at the target zone?" May asked.

Hand's eyes narrowed slightly as she hadn't noticed Coulson cuing his underling to get involved, but she answered the question. "That's when you'll blame us and Big Shield for sticking our noses in your business and tell us to stay out of the way. That'll free us up to surveil everyone who was in the know about whichever target got hit."

"Sounds like a plan."

 **XXXXX**

"So, Communications fails again," May said as Hand left the room.

"Hey!" Coulson, graduate of the Communications Academy gave May, honors graduate of the Operations Academy a sharp look.

May shrugged from where she stood near the entrance to his office, out of the path of the door, but in the path of anyone who tried to come through it. "No technical leaks detected, but our unknowns were at Buzz's site."

"Which at least narrows down the list of potential leakers, and we did cut out any possible leak in the communications signal itself, so Communications can hardly be said to have failed."

"You're deflecting."

"I think I liked you better back before you were married to a shrink," Coulson muttered.

"I think I liked you better when you had patience," May said more seriously.

Coulson gave her a curious look.

"I know what you're thinking."

"There's never been any proven instance of telepathy. I checked the Index the last time you tried this."

"Like I need telepathy to know that you're thinking of cutting all our suspects out of the information flow so you can actually hit the next target."

"That would expose that we knew there was a mole and knew it was one of them," Coulson pointed out.

"Which is why you shouldn't do that," May agreed.

"Which is why I wouldn't do that."

"Go—"

"No, I'd definitely detain all of them and then move on the next target while they were being interrogated," Coulson said.

"Five agents for one mole? We'd probably lose the loyalty of the other four," May said.

"Who says its only one mole?"

May gave that the single eyebrow raise it deserved.

"There's risk in letting this play out."

"SHIELD doesn't attract the risk averse. And you've never been afraid to roll the dice."

"Playing on my pride? Seriously, May?" Coulson asked, waving her argument away. "Like I have any."

"You have pride in your lack of pride," May answered.

Coulson laughed. "What's the sound of one hand stabbing a traitor in the throat, kemosabe?"

"Squelch."

He laughed again. "You win. We give Hand more time."

"But?" May asked, seeing the slight tension in him that meant there was a 'but.'

"But I think we'll step up the schedule a bit. Give our spy something to report while Hand's watching."

"One bad lead shouldn't tip anyone off, two might."

"So we don't make it a bad lead. Hand's already laid the ground-work for Big Shield taking this away from the local offices. That news should prompt a communication."

May cocked her head slightly, "And the longer Hand's people are watching, the more chance they'll get caught."

Coulson nodded.

"We should discuss it with her."

Coulson nodded again.

May frowned slightly. "I'm supposed to be the quiet one."

"Yeah, but you agreed with me and I'm trying to resist the urge to argue against my former position out of sheer shock."

"It's been two months," May explained herself, somewhat opaquely. But it had been two months since they'd been back to Sci-Tech and seen Ava and both of them wanted this business done with. Andrew might come visit her, Ava couldn't. And phone calls weren't much use with a eleven year old who defaulted to monosyllables when she was grumpy.

"I could send you back."

May glared at him.

"It's not like there's been a lot of combat."

Her eyebrows rose at that falsehood.

"That I've been involved with directly."

Her eyebrows lowered, her gaze did not decrease in intensity, or hostility at this suggestion.

"I'm smart enough not to go running into trouble."

Her eyebrows rose back up and her lips twitched with a hint of repressed laughter.

Coulson gave up. "So that's a 'no' then?"

She nodded. "That's a no," she agreed.

"Then we need to have another conversation with Hand," Coulson agreed.

"What fun."

 **XXXXX**

Hand glanced over the desk at Coulson, who was pouring her two fingers of whiskey and taking another glass for himself. A sip said the label hadn't been lying, this was the good stuff. It deserved a bit of truth. "I'll admit, I didn't expect him to do that."

"You had the forces you needed and you kept him alive," Coulson pointed out, sipping his own drink. "Well done."

"My interrogators are working him now, but still," Hand shrugged slightly, not looking at the other agent, but keeping him in her peripheral vision and therefore under surveillance. "Some part of me always expects it to go down like in the movies, either all genteel in capture, or fighting his way through 3-to-1 odds."

Coulson smirked. Hand almost said something cutting, but he spoke first. "Some part of me always expected it to be Jean, or Buzz, not one of the 'background characters,'" she heard the air quotes, even though his hand didn't leave the glass.

"Cultural programming," Hand muttered.

"Yep."

They sat for a moment, slowly emptying their glasses. He wasn't looking at her, but she was sure he could see her out of the corner of his eye. SHIELD training meant that you did things like that, regardless of whether the person you were keeping an eye on was ally or enemy. "You know I requested this assignment."

She honestly couldn't tell if it was a question, or a statement, but as he didn't continue, answered the question. "Yes."

"You know why."

"Yes," and she did. The business with Ava was relatively well contained within SHIELD, but she was internal security and the noise Coulson had made about Pym and his poking around about Elihas Starr had gotten her attention well enough to ensure she knew who she was dealing with.

"I know you didn't request this assignment. I know that you didn't carry it out in this manner as a favor to me, but rather because it was your duty and you're a professional," his words might have been a compliment, but the tone was dead level. "But I still…appreciate your help."

She considered that for a moment. It wasn't an admission of debt, or on offer to help her in future, which was good, if he'd said either of those, she'd have known he was trying to play her. Still, the…appreciation of one of Fury's protégés wasn't something to discard lightly.

"I can't imagine that was easy for one of Fury's protégés to say."

Now he did look at her, raising an eyebrow, "I'm trying for a bit of a softer style than my S.O."

"It's working."

"Thank you."

"Still," she drained the glass, "I'm a little surprised you haven't tried to take over the interrogation."

His eyes flicked away for a moment and there was nothing soft about him, for all that he was politely offering her the bottle and she was equally politely declining it. "I thought about it. The fact that you obviously want me to play the heavy, so you can see if…enhanced interrogation techniques will work on this guy without having to justify their use had no effect on my decisionmaking."

A moment passed as she parsed that sentence out, found the accusation, decided it was perfectly reasonable and not worth denying, regardless of its truth. Instead she focused on the relevant point, "So what did?"

"One thing Fury definitely taught me was my own limits. And the traitor can't talk with a broken jaw, or a case of the deads. And I can't find the vibranium if I'm under review."

"That bad?"

His hand tightened around the glass. "Yes."

She rose and gave him a nod. "Well, I'll be around for a while, seeing if we can bait our traitor's allies into trying to rescue him."

"Good luck."

"And to you."

The moment Hand slipped out of his office, May entered it. She _really_ didn't like him having private meetings, even with other SHIELD agents, at least when she was acting as his specialist. She didn't really like it when he met with people alone even when she wasn't acting as his specialist, but that was just possessiveness and paranoia, without the added splash of duty which made it okay to broadcast her feelings. Well, to the extent she ever did. Tiny frown, slight tightness in her movement, that was all, but it was enough for him to see it and offer a wordless apology.

A negligent hand waved her into the seat Hand had vacated, which, not coincidentally, gave her a clear line of sight on the door. Meanwhile his other hand finally began loosening his tie. May took the glass he offered her and sipped the whiskey, though she tended to view the glass as more potential projectile weapon than drink holder. They drank in silence for a painfully long time.

"So, we caught our mole," she said when she couldn't stand the silence anymore.

"Be fair, Hand caught the mole," Coulson said.

"Hand's part of SHIELD."

"Yes, yes, part of the 'we.' Or at least an outer 'we.' We, you and I, need to finish this up."

"We need a target."

"We need intel," Coulson agreed.

"Patience."

"Usually one of my few virtues," Coulson agreed. The tiny emphasis he put on 'usually' was insufficient to warrant italics, but she heard it.

"Without a mole, preparation will be key."

"We need to take senior members of Intelligencia prisoner," Coulson agreed. "And hope we get luckier than our rivals in our choice of prisoners."

"You think they're after the vibranium too? Not just smashing a criminal organization?"

"To penetrate SHIELD, then expend that asset? Maybe it's just a rival syndicate for Intelligencia, but then I'd expect to see the criminals hitting back. This looks more methodical than that. Another major player. And Intelligencia is a bunch of smugglers. Big time smugglers, but smugglers nonetheless."

"Maybe they're up to something else we don't know about."

"Always possible. Some bits of the South African nuclear weapons program have reportedly disappeared. IAEA inspectors are keeping quiet about it because SHIELD confirmed that South Africa doesn't have them, but Intelligencia might be moving them."

"But you don't think so."

"Expect the worst and you'll never be disappointed," Coulson said, quoting Fury.

"Well, this time we'll be prepared for the worst, and take the targets alive, even if I have to do it myself," there was a tiny undercurrent of tension in her voice, but Coulson heard it.

"Patience," he said.

"Until the moment comes to strike," May agreed.

 **XXXXX**

May did not check her watch again. She knew what it would say and the tiny amount of light from its display might give away her position as she hid. The camp had been on high alert, but she'd still made better time than she'd expected once she'd slipped the outer perimeter.

Intelligencia had guns and shooters, but for the most part they relied upon secrecy and their more militant members had died in droves trying to defend themselves against SHIELD's unknown rival. Current Intelligencia doctrine was focused on getting warning of an attack and scattering before it could do too much damage. That meant lots of border security and shit internal security. When combined with the fact that the organization was continent-spanning and that numerous bases had been destroyed over the last year, it meant that there were a lot of new faces.

English and French were the lingua francas of the ex-mercs, ex-spooks and ex-cons who made up the bulk of Intelligencia's members, both of which she spoke. With that and some observation of which tents were being avoided, she was confident that the tents she was hiding near contained the three senior members of Intelligencia on the base.

Time ticked forward slowly, but finally the moment was coming, her body began to tense. Slow breaths, trained relaxation exercises kept her from winding up too far, but the moment she and the guards heard the incoming helicopters, she moved.

A push of a button and the C4 she'd left on the ground-to-air missile site turned it to rubble, but that was all the help she could give the assault team. The rest of her attention was on her targets. The first one out of the tent was a massive black man who hadn't bothered to change from his night clothes, though he had grabbed an AK-47, which didn't help him at all when May kicked his feet out from under him, emerging from her hiding place.

He rolled free, trying to bring the rifle to bear, but May was already on top of him, inside the reach of the barrel, jabbing the needle directly into his carotid artery, sedative racing through him.

Unfortunately, the dose carefully balanced rapid incapacitation with not killing the target, and was insufficient for a man mountain like the one beneath her. His movements slowed somewhat, but with footsteps coming from behind her, there wasn't time to wait for it to have more effect, so she applied blunt force to his skull to stun him and a great deal more blunt force to the elbow of his right arm, bending it entirely the wrong way (vertically, not horizontally as his musculature was so impressive it might well have interfered with bending that way).

A moment later, she had possession of the AK-47 and was rolling free of the stunned, drugged and pained man. A quick kick to his head and he was out for the moment, possibly forever. The next two men out of the tents were slim white men, closely alike enough in appearance they might have been twins, but for the difference in scar pattern over their bared torsos.

She couldn't hear the sniper fire which was decimating the defenders, but the helicopters which were providing aerial support were extremely loud and the assault teams which moved in as the snipers cleared the way were beginning to make even more noise as they advanced under cover of their fellows' automatic fire.

The twins hadn't been sleeping with weapons beside their beds, or had forgotten to grab them in their haste to see what was happening, leaving her with the only gun amongst the three of them. Unfortunately, she didn't want to kill them. Fortunately, they didn't know that. Unfortunately, after having a number of their bases destroyed, they decided discretion was the better part of valor and chose to run. Fortunately, they stuck together.

May dropped a colored smoke grenade to signal the assault teams on where to focus their efforts and sprinted after the fleeing pair. They were about as fast as her, but without shoes they were at a distinct disadvantage, especially in where they could go. The camp itself was relatively level and free from things which would catch, or cut, feet, but if they ventured outside they'd have problems. A heavily wooded area made a pretty good hiding place, but a terrible race-track. Plus the whole place was surrounded by heavily armed and pissed off SHIELD agents.

The real challenge was keeping them from getting shot. Fortunately, they wanted that too and so shied away from the oncoming assault team, which sent them back towards May, who'd dropped the AK-47 as excess weight she didn't need. The twins moved together with the ease of long practice. Despite lacking the massive musculature of their fellow, they were still strong enough that taking blows was going to have to be a strategy of last resort. What was worse, they were almost as fast as she was.

This might be interesting.

The left twin closed as his brother guarded him, preparing to strike her in the back if she tried to grapple. So she evaded the first strike and considered the problem. Her usual solution to this would have been a strike to the throat of the first twin, then take down the second while his brother choked on a crushed windpipe, or fractured larynx. Unfortunately, neither would leave the man able to talk any time soon. Or perhaps, ever.

That left somewhat more, elaborate techniques. Still, he only needed to be able to talk, not walk.

The man was a boxer focusing on punches, but he knew enough to not entirely ignore May's feet. Still he fell for the feint toward his face and kick to the knee. His brother moved to guard him as he fell towards the ground, but May leapt up, both feet leaving the ground to slam into the man's chest, sending him sprawling and gasping backwards. Usually the fact that that kick left her on the ground was a major downside, but now it was actually useful. Landing on the twin with the bruised (but not dislocated, she hadn't had enough room to move) knee put her precisely in position to drive the second sedative dose into his carotid.

He got grabby, trying for a grapple, but this time the sedative worked fast enough that his grip was nothing more than an irritant.

His brother had made it to his feet by the time she was free, but didn't abandon his brother and run, instead he rushed her, trying to free his brother and take May while she was still on the ground.

That was a mistake. Like his brother, he was a boxer, closing to grapple with a SHIELD specialist was not going to go well for him. There was movement behind him, guards collapsing inwards in panicked flight from the SHIELD assault. Which meant this had to be fast. His headlong rush was easy enough to spin into a roll that put her on top, with her close enough in that he couldn't get leverage for any sort of powerful strike from his hands. Before she could get another sedative free of its sheath, he slammed his head against hers knocking her back into perfect range for the wild follow-up haymaker he threw. In turn, May threw herself back, collapsing on the ground and kicking him hard in the stomach as she fell backward and rolled away, gaining a bit of distance and her feet as he pushed himself up, taking position over his brother's body. May had lost the sedative. She only had one more, which meant she couldn't risk any more nonsense.

She rushed him, slipping under the pair of punches he swung at her and grabbed his leg, then kicked the other knee and pulled back, dislocating both his knees and pulling a scream from his collapsing form. Though his arms still worked, the man was flat on his back and in terrible agony. Kneeling on his shoulders pinned his arms down while he was screaming in agony, giving her all the time she needed to retrieve her last sedative and drive it into his carotid, rendering him unconscious in mere moments.

Gunshots brought her to her feet in time to see two of the approaching guards fall to the ground in a welter of their own blood and the last drop his gun and raise his hands, shouting in a language she didn't recognize, the content was pretty clear, however. Behind them, SHIELD agents in full body armor, carrying rifles advanced. Under the eyes of a senior operative, they neither shot the surrendering guard, nor beat the shit out of him.

Instead they saluted (which they shouldn't have done, as she didn't need a bullseye on her back) and took the guard and the unconscious twins into custody, pulling them out.

At her order, a pair followed her back to find the man mountain. He'd made it vertical again, despite the drugs, the shattered elbow and the repeated blows to the head, but he was staring at nothing and mumbling to himself and didn't manage to resist the guards as they approached. He did try to strike one when they touched the broken arm he was instinctively shielding, but that didn't work because he aimed about three feet to the agent's left.

They ended up more guiding than restraining the man mountain as they led him off to the transport back to base.

 **XXXXX**

"Hello, Jaap."

Jaap Hertzog's eyes opened and he found himself sitting in what had to be an interrogation room, seeing as he was chained to the metal table by his wrists and his legs were, he tried to stretch, yep, chained to the uncomfortable metal chair he was sitting in. His interrogator was sitting across from him, in a similar metal chair and a cheap black suit. White, male, late thirties from the receding hairline. Dark eyes and still hands, pressed flat against the metal of the table as if he was holding himself back from something. Behind him, built into the wall was a TV screen, black as the rest of the room. Only the small light above Jaap's head (and out of reach, given his chains) provided any light and that was just a small pool in the darkness of the interrogation room. Except for the wall behind the other man, he couldn't even see the walls of the room, but the one he could see (except the TV) was concrete and his bare feet said the floor was as well.

"It's pronounced—"

"I don't care. Understand this, there are many people in SHIELD who want many things from you. Most of those things are painless, though many are dishonorable. I want only one thing from you, the location of the vibranium Intelligencia stole. Now, you're thinking that gives you leverage. You have something I want," the man's voice had been a dull monotone, but now a nasty smirk began to fill his face. "But you see, I need the vibranium to save my daughter's life. And now," the smirk spread to a truly disturbing degree, "you're imagining that you have a _lot_ of leverage. But here's the thing, you don't want to have leverage with me. You don't want to be involved with me. You want to be dealing with the nice part of SHIELD that only wants information and cooperation and maybe to drop you in a nice prison cell."

"And why's that?" Jaap asked, trying to sneer himself.

"Because they have no personal interest in you, only the professional one. So they would balk at, say, shattering every one of your brother's bones while keeping him alive, in order to induce you to talk. And they would definitely not go to the broken, crippled mass of meat that was once your twin and ask him what should be done with the brother who had kept silent at such outrageous cost to him. Ah, but maybe he loves you so much that he would still ask that you go free, alas that I'm a father, not merely a demon and so don't actually give a shit what he says unless it's worse than what I've already got planned for you," smirk no longer accurately described the expression that covered the agent's face. Snarl was insufficient as well, but closer.

"You're bluffing," Jaap said.

There was a moment of silence, then a horrifying scream filled the room. Jaap was certain it was his brother John, but forced himself to doubt, then the screen behind Coulson's head flickered to life and he saw them doing something to John's legs and his brother's agony.

"STOP!" he yelled.

"Oh, there's no need for concern, Jaap. He tried to fight coming in, so my agents dislocated both his knees. They're just putting him back together. We wouldn't want him to get used to being legless before we crushed them." John screamed on the screen again. "Whoops, I guess they forgot the anesthetic. Don't worry, we'll use anesthetic when we're breaking every bone in his body. Pain, after all, is not the point. Compliance is."

"You can't do—"

"Obviously I can do this, I am doing this. Torture is generally not a tool we use for three reasons. First, it's not particularly reliable. Fortunately, we have multiple people who all have the information we need, so once you tell me, I can confirm it with the others. Reliability, yay. Second, it's illegal. Still true, but no one who knows about this cares about you jackasses. A natural consequences of your starting a fight that got some of their buddies killed is that they don't give a shit about you. Third, it's immoral. And it still is, but I don't give a shit because the only morality I am concerned about is ensuring the survival of my daughter. So, give me the information I need and you don't ever need to deal with me again."

Jaap stared at him in silence for a moment, wincing as his brother screamed again. Seeing the other man's face grow more gleeful at his brother's screams was enough. "See, those screams, that's music to my ears, because every scream, every corpse gets me one step closer to saving her. You really don't want to be in my path." That was just…excessive.

"I still wouldn't have said anything, except we don't have the fucking vibranium, you suited asshole."

"Disappointing. I think I'll start with your brother's hands and work our way up. Let him keep his legs long enough to get used to them again," he said, pushing himself off the metal table and rising.

"Because the raging butthole who stole it for us, Ulysses Klaue, is a thieving, back-stabbing, fucking traitor, who kept it," Jaap concluded.

The agent sat back down. "Tell me everything."

 **XXXXX**

Doing exactly the same performance with John Hertzog was a pain in the ass, especially since they didn't have tape of Jaap screaming as they fixed his legs. Fortunately, the horrible agony had rather disabused John of the notion that Coulson was playing by any rules except his own, so it only took another few hours of playing the monster to get the same basic story out of each of the twins. The last of the senior leadership was a bit of a tougher case as they didn't have any of his family available to threaten, but going at him last from the angle of trying to get information about Klaue was quite successful at providing additional confirmation.

With that done, Coulson's feet were up on his desk as he considered the information they had on the vibranium thief and theft from the interrogations of the prisoners and the analysis of what intelligence they had recovered, combined with their own work.

Klaue had done freelance work for Intelligencia, mostly crossing off people the organization needed removed, but occasionally working acquisitions for them. Without the SHIELD euphemisms, he'd been a thief and a murderer for hire. Then he went to them with a sample of vibranium and a promise that he could get them a _lot_ more, if they'd back his theft. He went up one of the Nile tributaries with a boat, two cargo containers and dozens of extremely expensive mercenaries and didn't come back down again.

When Coulson prepared to run a search for the cargo containers, he'd discovered silent alarms would go off if he made the attempt. Tracing those back to Hand was surprisingly difficult, though they were both graduates of the Communications Academy, so in retrospect it wasn't that surprising. Apparently their traitor had run the same search and she'd been trying to figure out why.

With that question answered, she passed over what her team had found on the cargo containers. They'd been picked up by a cargo carrier at the inland port in Juba on the Nile and carried upriver like hundreds of others, nothing unusual, until it reached its destination. Then it turned out that they were destroyed in a horrible explosion after being offloaded from a cargo ship in Port Said, Egypt, along with a dozen dock workers.

Nothing unusual, besides two cargo containers of high explosives, had been found at the scene and the official story was accidental discovery and detonation of an illegal arms shipment. More likely was that Klaue had swapped the labels from the vibranium crates to explosive crates and left them behind for whoever might follow. A strategy which had, evidently, worked.

So the question became, where had the vibranium gone? Port Said was one of the top forty busiest cargo ports in the world. With the right labelling, prepared in advance, they could be shipped anywhere in the world and as someone who'd worked with Intelligencia's smuggling operations, Klaue was well positioned to know how to cover his tracks.

A quiet word with the Egyptian office had some men looking into the disaster to see if they could find anything unusual at the port and quite a few more analysts attempting the impossible task of tracing every container which might contain the vibranium. Unfortunately, everyone who might have known the specific previous identification of the explosive filled crates before the swap was thoroughly dead in the explosion, leaving them with far too many possibilities, which had only multiplied in the months since the explosion.

If that was what Klaue had done, then it was going to be impossible to trace him. They'd have to wait for him to start to sell the vibranium. But one other thing Jaap had said and the others had confirmed (besides a great deal of useful information about Intelligencia's enemies who might help a renegade like Klaue) was that the man was apparently obsessed with vibranium.

If that was the case, he wouldn't do the smart thing and let the global shipping system take the vibranium where he wanted it. He'd need to be with it. Which meant…

Coulson swore under his breath. The cargo containers had always been a ruse. Why show them to people he planned to double cross if that wasn't the case? There hadn't been any swap, because the vibranium had never been in them in the first place. The boat which had taken Klaue on his trip to the land of vibranium had been abandoned when they reached their first port and Klaue had been seen in various places in Port Said, then disappeared at approximately the same time as the explosion.

Coulson pulled up the same SHIELD databases, pulling from other intelligence services and just general port information, which he'd been using to track the cargo containers and instead tracked ships. The cargo ship which he'd taken up the Nile from Juba to Port Said had continued on its way, through the Suez Canal and headed on, carrying cargo for Mumbai. From there it had stopped at every large port in China, Korea, Japan, and now was making its way to Tanjung Priok, in Indonesia, with nothing on its manifest destined for any further port.

Digging deeper into the data, the ship was, like many cargo ships, owned by a corporation which had no assets beyond the ship itself, to limit liability. Flagged out of Liberia, like most cargo ships. The named agent on the company's registry was the captain, who had no obvious connection to Klaue. Nothing to indicate they were anything but an honest cargo vessel.

Still, it was a place to start.

The investigation's deadlock was broken, he could justify leaving. Mostly.

May came into the office without bothering to knock. "What's next?" she asked. Ever since she'd watched the interrogation of the Hertzogs, she'd been a bit tetchy and wanted him away from them.

"We're going to intercept the _CS Churchill_ on her way to Indonesia."

It was a measure of something, her trust in him, perhaps, or her desire to get this over with, that the questions that followed were all about how they were going to intercept the ship and not about why they were going to do so.

Apparently the _Iliad,_ formerly the _USS Forrestal_ , until she was decommissioned and passed over to SHIELD as part of America's contribution to SHIELD, was on her shake-down cruise not too far away. The aircraft carrier was the furthest thing in the world from new, but SHIELD had retrofitted her somewhat and she had a full complement of attack planes and enough helicopters to carry a significant assault force. That should be more than enough to capture a cargo ship whose crew shouldn't be more than thirty people.

Should and shouldn't.

Not as certain as he wanted it to be, but good enough to be getting on with. Which meant he needed to make some calls, to borrow an aircraft and an aircraft carrier. The details could be figured out in transit, with the help of the aircraft carrier's officers.

May agreed, but didn't leave him to the wonderful task of calling people and getting them to agree to let him borrow their stuff, instead she sat down opposite him. "Phil?"

"Yes, Melinda?" he asked, a little surprised by the shift, but not overmuch. They'd been working long enough hours since the raid that he was comfortable saying they were off the clock, even if they were still in the office.

"Were you bluffing with the Hertzogs or not?"

Coulson gave her a flat look for a moment.

"I don't really care if they die, screaming or not, but that's not…" she paused and swallowed for a moment. "Do you know why Fury chose to be your S.O. when you aren't even Operations Academy trained?"

Coulson chose to deflect with a joke about his beauty and intellect.

"No. it was because most of his protégés were exactly that. And worse. Garrett's nasty military background is the nicest history any of his protégés but you has. And that's because people like them," she paused and swallowed and continued, "like me, need people like you. We need you to remind us that there are lines. There aren't just shades of grey."

Coulson's eyebrows flicked up. "I have no interest in being Fury's, or SHIELD's," he paused for a moment himself, "or your, surrogate conscience."

"That's not what I—" May began to defend herself.

"To answer your question. No, I would not have had them tortured. The risk of death would have been too great. But I will do whatever is necessary to ensure Ava's survival."

"Be careful, Phil. It's very easy to convince yourself that something is necessary just because it's easier."

"I'd be more worried about the reverse."

May's eyes narrowed in confusion.

"How many of our fellows tell themselves that they're the only ones able to make the hard choices, which makes them better than everyone else? Therefore, the hard choice must be the correct one, because otherwise making it makes them a monster, not a hero."

May's head tilted as she considered this, then moved forward, ignoring the persiflage. "Don't do that either."

Coulson gave her a glare. "I have calls to make."

May nodded and headed for the exit.

"May."

"Coulson?"

"Thank you for caring enough to speak up."

"You're welcome, Jiminy," she said, with the tiny flash of a smile over her shoulder and ducked out before he could respond, or throw anything at her.

 ** _Author's Note: The_ Iliad _in the MCU isn't the_ Forrestal, _but it's my explanation of how SHIELD gets an aircraft carrier, which is…not a cheap, or easy thing. I admit they can build a helicarrier (or five over the course of the MCU), but that's a problem for a later day. Reviews are always welcome._**


	7. 1994—Redeeming A Home, Losing A Home

**Chapter 7—1994—Redeeming A Home, Losing A Home**

 ** _Author's Note: Killjoys4life thanks for your kind comments. All is well, I just got busy with work and didn't have time to review, or update things as much as I like. Also, this chapter somehow turned out even longer than the last. There wasn't a great breaking point here, but the next chapter is shorter, I promise._**

The _Iliad_ was impressive. Coulson had never been on an aircraft carrier. He hoped to be back at some point when he had time to actually look around, but they were only going to catch the _Churchill_ in international waters if they moved _very_ fast. And they did not need the added question of Indonesian law and national claims to the vibranium, if it was there.

So they hustled directly from the two seater plane May had successfully landed on the _Iliad_ (impressively to Coulson's inexperienced eyes) to the assault group. Twenty heavily armed SHIELD agents, wearing the full black body armor and carrying rifles were waiting for them. Another twenty were already in the air on helicopters which had already lifted off. The jets which were providing long range (and fast moving) support were also in the air already and the small boats which were carrying their search and rescue team and seaside backup were already underway to ensure the slower craft arrived in time.

Coulson and May moved to the front of the line on the next helicopter being moved into position to take off without shredding its blades, or anything in the way of its blades, depending on the respective toughness of the two items. The senior agent on the scene introduced himself and shook May's hand, then Coulson's. Coulson filed the name away somewhere where it would come out again if needed and let his mouth run through the needed pleasantries.

May was wearing her usual light gear and was, therefore, the only one who would not immediately drown if she fell out of the helicopter. Unusually she had a holstered pistol on her belt. Coulson had his usual suit on, with a bulletproof vest on and a pistol on his belt and another under his arm. He might manage to stay alive long enough to take off the armor and swim for the surface, if he were to fall into the ocean.

"Sir, this isn't piracy, right?" one of the more junior agents asked as they approached the helicopter.

Coulson glanced over at her. "No."

She nodded. Then spoke up again. "Um…why not? It sort of looks a lot like piracy. What with the boarding a ship at sea to seize their cargo, if it's there."

"All we're doing is boarding and inspecting the vessel based on the information our investigation has uncovered. And we've been in touch with the Liberian government, which has given SHIELD permission to board this vessel which, as a Liberian flagged vessel is under Liberian jurisdiction until it enters coastal waters. Or so it was explained to me by SHIELD's Office of General Counsel when I explained that I wanted to borrow the boat—"

"Ship," muttered one of the other agents, revealing his naval background. Coulson ignored him.

"and see what was onboard," Coulson concluded. "We're legal. I'm happy to send you the ten pages of legalese Counsel sent me, once we're back, at least if you'll tell me your name."

"Isabelle Hartley," she said with a nod, but without the salute which those agents recruited out of various militaries tended to give. "But there's no need to send me anything, just making sure."

"Well, make sure your gun's ready, not just those knives of yours," the senior agent snapped, clearly irritated by the interruption.

Before Coulson could say anything on the topic of due diligence being a good thing, it was time for the first group to board and suddenly it was far too loud to talk. Or at least, to be heard. Still, he gave Hartley a nod and got on the helicopter.

A long and not particularly comfortable ride later, they and the other helicopters were sweeping up on the _Churchill_ as a unit. Coulson was the only one in the back of the assault helicopter who had on a headset and so could talk to the pilots (or anybody, given the level of noise). A few quick words and the tactical approach was set.

He, May and the eight agents with them would down onto the portion of the foredeck which didn't have cargo containers on it, while a second helicopter dropped another ten agents at a clear spot in the aft. They'd have to go down ropes, as there were no clear spots large enough to land a helicopter, except atop the cargo containers, which were neither stable, nor sturdy enough for them to trust with the weight of an assault chopper and they might have unbalanced the load, even if they were sturdy enough.

All the small ships except the search and rescue craft would close with the _Churchill_ at the same time.

Simultaneous with the first wave reaching the ship, the pilots of the non-approaching helicopters would contact the _Churchill_ and let them know they were being inspected, not invaded. Though the massive noise and disruption of a full scale, multi-prong assault by helicopters and ships, of the ship would probably suggest that that wasn't true.

Coulson, who had gone through air assault training, five years ago and not bothered with it since, went down in the middle of the group, after May and a quartet of agents were down to guard the landing area and catch the senior agent if he happened to fall. He didn't, but the descent wasn't a lot of fun and the deck was not exactly designed for use by people in dress loafers.

With the cargo containers forming a maze on the deck of the _Churchill_ , their lines of sight were blocked and the path was not obvious. They'd seen that coming in and Coulson thought that was probably a good sign. Cargo containers were usually carefully stacked in entirely predictable rows. The maze might indicate they had something to hide. Or something to defend. Or it might indicate that someone on the ship, or at their last port, was an idiot who didn't understand proper cargo handling. Though Coulson tried to follow Fury's warning not to ascribe to planning what can be explained by idiocy and its corollary that coincidences do happen. But all he could really recall was Garrett's post script, 'but not to SHIELD agents.'

Coulson and May had automatically memorized the layout of the maze when they'd flown over it, so finding a path leading to the ship's bridge and from there below-deck, was easy enough for them. The other agents followed May, but would need to rely on the helicopters to provide directions if they either got separated, or chose to split up.

This was not, Coulson thought to himself, a good place to take on an entrenched enemy, prepared to defend territory they were familiar with while SHIELD was still trying to find its bearings. Still, if it got too messy, he'd just send agents up the cargo containers to the top. In fact, he sort of wished he'd roped down to the top, instead of the deck. Still, this way offered a great deal more cover, even if it meant the helicopters couldn't provide much help without sending the _Churchill_ to the bottom. This would not be a good place to attempt to do salvage operations as the ocean was deep and currents could (according to the researchers he'd annoyed into talking to him) carry things, especially things as light as vibranium, a long way.

Fortunately, no one shot at them while they were in the maze and the assault team refrained from sinking the _Churchill_ , so that worrying was for naught.

The team which had landed aft, was still winding its way through the container ship towards the bridge when Coulson's team arrived. May was still in the lead and a hand gesture set two agents watching the entrance, rifles in their hands as she entered the bridge, backed by another quartet of agents, while the final pair dogged Coulson's steps.

He entered a moment later, seeing as the bridge had not exploded into gunshots and fire. The _Churchill_ supposedly had two ways below-deck, one from the aft, and one under the bridge. The aft team would be leaving a group of guards to watch the back way as they moved forward. With the helicopters on overwatch, they should have warning if there turned out to be other ways down, or up.

"What the FUCK do you think you are doing?" the captain bellowed, looming over May like an avalanche waiting to fall. In this case, the avalanche would not enjoy the consequences of falling, but the appearance was still there.

May ignored him as her escorts moved to guard the hatch down to below-deck and keep an eye on the other two crewman on the bridge. In passing Coulson noticed that both men were quite fit, as you might expect for sailors and had movement patterns he associated with soldiers. Still, he hadn't spent much time around sailors, he couldn't conclude anything based on that. Which was the worst part of investigating, always holding conclusion at bay lest it limit his vision.

"This is the _CS Churchill,_ traveling under the Liberian flag. You have no FUCKING right to board us. This is highway robbery!" Coulson recognized the man from the files they'd pulled on the _Churchill_ , though the rest of his crew's names and information wasn't contained anywhere Coulson could find it. It was a bit hard to tell given the man's volume, but Coulson thought he had a bit of a South African accent, which wouldn't entirely give with the records SHIELD had been able to dig up on him, which said he was from Belgium.

"Piracy would be more accurate. Still inaccurate, but more accurate," Coulson said, drawing the man's attention and freeing May to begin moving down, which she did, leaving the bridge and its occupants to Coulson and company.

The massive man stomped over to Coulson who's eyes flickered over him. He couldn't be Klaue, not without putting on a ridiculous amount of weight in the six months since the man had last been spotted. And at least two inches in height. Which was doable with the right shoes, but the man wasn't wearing those. Klaue reportedly also never lost his prized beard and this man was clean shaven and had an entirely different facial structure.

Coulson temporarily shelved the idea of the captain actually being Klaue and smiled benevolently up at the man. His eyes hadn't noticed any hidden weapons, but there was a reason they were called _hidden_ weapons.

"And why's that then?"

"Because we have permission from Liberia. Because we're the Strategic Hazard Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division of the United Nations. Because we're here looking for criminals, not loot. And because unless you do something very, very stupid, we're not going to kill you. And even if you do do something very, very stupid, we're not going to sell you into slavery. That's why this is nothing like piracy."

The captain stared at him for a long moment, probably shooting for intimidation, but his own face, reflected back in Coulson's sunglasses showed only a remarkably nonplussed man. Coulson savored moments like this and couldn't, or chose not to, let the smile broaden into something more than benevolent.

"What?"

"Which part is confusing you?" Coulson asked gently.

The man went with fury as his reaction. Not entirely shocking, but not at all wise given he was outnumbered and unarmed, probably. "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?"

"Agent Philip Coulson. Strategic Hazard Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division."

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?"

"Searching your ship for any connection to a terrorist attack in Port Said," Coulson lied, smooth as silk.

The man did not react correctly to that. Tension would have been appropriate, as being extradited back to Egypt on terrorism charges was not a story that had a happy ending. Perhaps confusion if he didn't know what was going on. The flicker of emotions that passed over his face was too fast for Coulson to identify, but the captain clearly chose to go with fury to cover other emotions beneath that one.

His fist slammed against the console he'd been standing at, carefully avoiding the screen. "What bullshit is this? We haven't been in Egypt in _months_! Half my crew wasn't even onboard back then!"

"Then this will be a quick visit and you can be on your way," Coulson waved a negligent hand and one of the agents stepped forward towards the controls. The captain got in his way and then got out of it again as the agent's partner's gun rose.

"What are you doing?"

"As I said, you can be on your way once we're done. For now, you're going to stop this ship."

"This is a fully loaded container ship, we don't stop on a sixpence!"

"So long as we stop on water, I don't much care."

The captain glared at Coulson, then glanced around. "Where'd the other one go?" he asked one of his crew. The man jerked his head towards the hatch May had entered.

Coulson stepped between the captain and the hatch, leaving the protective bubble of his pair of guards who had now taken up position at the ship's controls and were figuring out how to stop it without breaking the controls, breaking the ship, or losing the cargo over the side. Coulson had contingencies in place if they reached Indonesian coastal waters, but he didn't want to use them and he did want to give the crew and Klaue should he be present, a place to run where they would think they were safe. Without, of course, actually being safe.

"That's really not your problem, Captain," Coulson said, hands outstretched.

"You send your bitch into _my_ ship and it's not _my_ problem? Pull the other one, it's got bells on, you stupid fucker."

"Ah," Coulson said, the smile never leaving his face. "I see here we have a culture clash. You are interpreting my refusal to respond to your insults as a sign of weakness, whereas, in my culture, responding to mere words from an impotent civilian with anything but mild words would be considered a ridiculously cowardly overreaction."

The captain's lips moved for a moment as he tried to figure out the twists of that ridiculously long sentence. Then he shoved all that aside and focused on the bit that had made his men snigger, then go poker-faced. "Did you just call me impotent?"

"Oh, that seems awfully unlikely from a professional SHIELD agent," Coulson said ingenuously. "But I'm sure that if I did then I meant it metaphorically and not as an insult towards you." The captain glared and Coulson continued, "By which I mean only that it would have been indicative of the fact that you are outnumbered and outgunned, not that you are unable to get an erection. Does that address your concern?"

The captain's glare remained fixed on Coulson, the question of where May was had fallen by the wayside, as intended. Face growing paler as he grew more furious, for a moment there was an actual threat of violence in the air, then the quartet of agents from the aft arrived and the numbers shifted from even to 7-to-3 and the captain decided discretion was the better part of valor.

A wave of his hand brought a pair of the newly arrived agents along as Coulson went below, leaving two agents on guard outside the bridge and four in control of it, more than enough to handle any resistance. Below-deck the _Churchill_ was an even worse maze than above-deck. They'd pulled the design plans, but clearly the ship had been rebuilt at some point, with reinforced beams stuck higgledy-piggledy throughout the area doors and walls attached to them apparently at random. Only the overhead lighting hadn't been screwed with and it bounced off the metal of the walls and floor in a harsh flare of fluorescence.

There was still a single long central corridor, but it turned wild on the branches, many dead ending in either crew quarters, or a series of welded panels. Irritating.

May would be working her way back towards the bow of the ship, while Coulson would head aft in a quick sweep as more and more agents poured onto the vessel. The full search would follow, but trying to see who ran where and what they did under pressure was worth a little risk.

Or so Coulson and May had concluded. It was, therefore, a little unfortunate when the lights went out. A tiny amount of light filtered down from the open hatches, but not much.

It was more than a little unfortunate that the engine shifting again, from the reverse which the SHIELD agents on the bridge had thrown it into to try to stop the ship, to full ahead, almost jarred the SHIELD agents off their feet.

All three agents recovered quickly and the guards flicked on the tactical lights built into their rifles, one taking the lead and the other taking the rear, light flashing off the metal bulkheads. Without a flashlight, or night-vision goggles, Coulson was not in a great spot, but a quick conversation on his, hopefully secure, radio confirmed his understanding that the bridge commands could only have been overridden either in the engine room, or actually at the main propeller. They were near the main propeller and May should be in the vicinity of the engine room. Another quick conversation had each team on its way and a third had orders given to detain any and all crew found.

Coulson had just finished that last conversation when loud bursts of fire took both his guards down. Reacting instantly, the senior agent took cover in the nearest dark corner, eschewing the lights which had probably provided whoever was hiding out there with targets.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given how his day had been going, the corner was dark because a black man, in black clothing, carrying a black gun was hiding in it. A noise and confused moment later and the man was choking on a crushed throat and Coulson had a third gun, not terribly useful, and a set of cheap night-vision goggles, extremely useful. Pulling those on, the agent hit the alert on his radio, even as he moved silently away from the rather too noisy encounter.

The alarm was less for May, as she'd almost certainly hear the echoing gunshots, at least if she hadn't been ambushed as well, then for the folks above-deck. That done, he silenced his radio, as it really wouldn't do to make any noise at the moment.

Three quick turns through darkened corridors and Coulson turned back to the site of the ambush. His movements were slower now, still silent, but he moved with purpose as, having escaped, he returned to check on the men he'd left behind. His mind recreated the site of the ambush as he approached it from another angle. The shots had seemed to come from both sides and there'd been the third man on site, who hadn't fired…perhaps they'd sought a prisoner? There'd been more shots fired after he left, but he couldn't tell if those were at his guards, or someone else, given the way sound echoed in the crazy lack-of-patterned corrdiors.

Regardless, if he came in at the correct angle, he should be able to ambush the ambusher who'd been further aft, assuming the man was still in place. He wasn't. A silent, stealthy approach, or at least as close as he could manage down a mostly bare metal corridor got him close enough to the agents to see that they were very thoroughly dead, having taken a burst of automatic fire to the head while down on the ground. SHIELD armor was good, but no helmet stood up to a burst of point-blank fire from an automatic rifle. The green of the night-vision mostly hid it, but Coulson could make out a slight blood trail where one of the ambushers must have caught a ricochet from the executions, as certainly none of his men had gotten a shot off. A few pieces of equipment could be scavenged without wasting too much time and he did so.

There was no time for mourning, or apologies to the men he'd lead to their deaths, but he took careful note of their names and silently promised that he would see them added to the Wall of Valor.

Coulson followed the trail of blood droplets, wishing all the while that they were rather more visible then they were. Surprisingly fast he came to a barred hatch. Pressing his ear against it, he could hear voices on the other side. After a moment of careful consideration in which he weighed his options and decided to wait for reinforcements, he heard a massive explosion rattling through the bones of the _Churchill_.

With that change in circumstance, he decided that breaching was the correct tactical decision after all. The hatch was metal and opened outward, currently locked. Held in place by two sets of hinges, which were its main vulnerability. Small breaching charges on each set of hinges and the single flashbang he'd recovered from his dead comrades got the door open and him through it.

Six men inside was rather more than he'd hoped for, but four of them were standing around covering their eyes and ears and moaning. The other two who'd taken cover and were now spraying automatic fire in the general direction of the door were more of a problem, but Coulson was past the door before they'd begun firing. He then had to take a moment and lose the night vision goggles as the room was quite brightly lit. Fortunately that wasn't enough to blind him, unlike the flashbang.

Blind-firing was not exactly safe and one of the group just standing around was already on the ground, thrashing about from friendly fire. Coulson casually shot the other three and circled to get a line of sight on the two hiding behind a metal table they'd knocked over. Despite the sudden shock, they'd clearly worked together for years as they'd moved together and were automatically firing from opposite ends of the table out into the rest of the room.

Unfortunately, they began to be able to see, at least shapes and motion, about the time Coulson got in position to take them out. And Coulson wanted some prisoners. Though not as much as he wanted to _not_ get shot repeatedly.

Quick shots sent the nearest of the still-active pair stumbling back into his comrade, buying Coulson the moment he needed to drop his, now empty, pistol and close the distance, rifles not being weapons people want to use when someone's on top of them. At least not if that someone is a trained SHIELD agent.

The closest man was black, taller than Coulson, with well-defined muscles and enough training to take one swing with the rifle as the agent closed, then abandon it when driven back into his comrade, crowding the pair of them into the corner.

Or at least, that was the intent. The other man, who Coulson still couldn't see, rolled away, but had the bad luck to have his rifle's strap catch on one of the upturned metal legs, yanking him into a premature stop, close enough for Coulson to kick him savagely in the head, buying himself a moment to deal with his first target. The first man was well trained and stronger, if a little slower than Coulson, but his vision was clearly still screwed up, as his squinting demonstrated. In twisting to defend against a knee to the groin, he lost sight of Coulson's right side and paid for that by accepting a relatively light shove, which knocked him off his feet and backwards into the bulkhead Coulson had been trying to crowd them both towards.

A moment of distraction was all it took Coulson to grab the man by one ear and a handful of dreadlocks and slam it three times against the wall, taking the fight and the life out of him.

That moment of work was all it took for the other man abandon his caught rifle, roll to his feet, backpedaling wildly from the fight, pistol sliding free of its holster. Coulson spun to face him, recognizing the beard and heavy facial features that identified Ulysses Klaue, as the mercenary drew a bead on him, clearly recognizing his body armor for what it was, he was going for a headshot as he stood between the hatch and the table, where Coulson had briefly been during his entrance. Unlike Coulson, he stayed there a moment too long and three quick shots from down the corridor turned his chest and throat into a welter of gore.

Coulson took cover behind the table and as an internal voice yelled about the lack of prisoners, he flicked his radio off silent mode. The sound said that the shots had come from a pistol, of the same model that was now sliding into his hand from the holster under his arm, the same model that most SHIELD agents carried as backup weapons. Except one other person on this boat, who also carried it as a primary weapon. "May, was that you who took that shot?"

"Yes. We're approaching your location."

"How far out?"

"Now? Two hundred feet," she said as her team, intact, approached slowly, covering each intersection as they approached.

"Nice shot."

"Mmm…" May mostly ignored the praise, as always. "You've been spending too much time chasing Ava around and not enough at the ra—" she paused as she entered the room and saw the copious amounts of gore which filled it, along with five corpses besides the one she'd created, then continued, "-nge."

"Undoubtedly," Coulson agreed, noting she still had two of her guards. A quick trawl through his memory provided the names of the other two, "Paulson? Veil?"

"Injured, we dropped them off at the bridge for medical treatment. We still hold the topside, but they took out one of the choppers. Search and rescue is underway."

"How?"

"They had several shoulder launched SAMs. Not top quality weapons, only one of them managed a hit, but that was enough."

Coulson nodded.

"Leifer? Milton?" she asked.

"Dead."

May nodded.

"We have prisoners to interrogate and a ship to search." Coulson said.

May nodded.

 **XXXXX**

Ava was in a good mood. Anne, as Dr. Weaver allowed the girl to call her, had actually praised her last paper. Dr. Foster (though he wanted her to call him Bill, she didn't want to do that, because every time she spent any time with him, he took blood samples, with needles, which he was not good at) was too busy studying the initial samples of vibranium to bug her. She had hope for the first time since the massive explosion that had killed her parents. SHIELD had somehow arranged for the Lion King to be screened on the Sci-Tech campus, where she could see it without waiting for it to come out on tape.

Oh, and May and Coulson were on their way back home, having finally finished handling the clean-up of their operation. She was so excited she couldn't sleep the night before their arrival. Less than thirty minutes after their return, before she'd heard even a fraction of the unclassified stories they were telling, but after she'd gotten several hugs and returned Coulson's badge and gotten it returned to her in turn, she was asleep in her chair at the dinner table, leaning against Coulson. In turn, Coulson was eating his food one handed, with a bit of help from May, cutting up the larger bits so he could spear them with his fork without waking Ava.

Well, first she'd watched him struggle for a while, stopping anyone else from helping him with her patented health glare. But when he accidentally sent a bit of sauce careening towards Ava's dark, tightly curled hair, she chose to help.

It was a good night. One mission down. One to go. There was a plan to save Ava.

 **XXXXX**

May was not in a good mood. You had to know her well to see it, but the tiny signs of tension said she was close to letting her temper out. Explosively. Coulson could feel the heat radiating off her, even though she was standing behind him.

"I appreciate your position, your majesty, however, we need vibranium in order to save a child's life—" Coulson argued, hand twitching despite his attempts at control. With his hands clasped tightly behind his back, that wasn't visible to anyone but May.

"There will always be a reason for outlanders to claim our vibranium," King T'chaka replied, the man was of an age, and height, and build, with Fury, who sat casually at the head of the table as Coulson attempted to convince T'chaka to let them keep some of the vibranium SHIELD agents had died to recover.

Wakanda was technically a signatory to the SHIELD treaty and paid its dues, small though they were given its economy, it was therefore _legally_ entitled to the return of its property, once it had proven the vibranium was stolen from Wakanda. Whether they actually got it, let alone all of it was what was being argued about. And though T'chaka had been allowed to bring his personal guard of four fit, shaven-headed, women and they had been allowed to retain their spears, Coulson still would have bet on the unarmed May, if she was released on them.

"Which is why you need allies amongst us," Coulson's head cocked as he went on the attack, "Unless you already have some such?" his hands came out from behind his back to slam down on the table and press there, flat, so they could not tremble. "Who else was it hunting the thieves? You perhaps recall them as the f—olks who killed SHIELD agents?"

"How would I know that? SHIELD keeps its secrets well."

"Then the spy who was leaking them information is likewise of no concern to you? His interrogation? His punishment? It will be quite severe. South Africa still has the death penalty and even if he evades it, their prisons are not nice places to be," Coulson smiled in a not-so-nice way himself, "And I guarantee you, if I have to build a SHIELD base directly over the prison, he will serve every day of his sentence."

T'chaka's face didn't twitch at this. "Though Wakanda mourns the loss of freedom of any child of Africa, it is no concern of ours."

"I'm glad to hear that," Coulson lied. "Because whoever was responsible for the spy was also responsible for the death of three SHIELD agents and the creation of one widow and four orphans."

T'chaka's face didn't twitch at that either. "Unfortunate, but no concern of ours."

Coulson switched tracks. "You know, it's difficult to estimate the value of vibranium, since it's so rare. But our best estimate is that the volume Klaue stole was worth billions. More, in fact, then Wakanda's entire GDP. Perhaps it is not being calculated correctly? Or perhaps information is being withheld from SHIELD? Either way, I wonder if you are up-to-date on your actual dues?"

T'chaka's lips curled into a snarl, but something about his eyes said it was fake, "You have your satellites and your planes flying over our land day and night taking pictures, what do you think that we have some massive hidden city built of vibranium? Madness! SHIELD support payments are based on GDP and so long as the vibranium is shield—protected by Wakanda, not used by it, as is our sacred trust, it is not included in our GDP, or in our dues."

There was a brief moment of silence as everyone absorbed the intricacies of that sentence. "Interesting then that this pure vibranium was all neatly mined, extracted and ready to be stolen by Klaue, all without our satellites and planes noticing a single mining operation, nor any industry which might be used to separate the vibranium from surrounding rock and materials," Coulson countered. That was true, but Wakanda had been of minimal interest to SHIELD and surveillance had been routine and minor until they announced the vibranium belonged to them.

The nearest guard muttered something in Xhosa which would be translated later, as this whole meeting was being recorded, for now, Coulson only had body language to go on and that was uniformly hostile. T'chaka held out a hand, palm down and the guard silenced herself. "We have protected the vibranium since before SHIELD was created. Of course we have extracted it and brought it together in a small number of places rather than try to protect every piece of rock from mining companies and colonial interests."

"Which simply made it easier for Klaue to steal. If vibranium is going to be making its way into the black-market, as you obviously cannot prevent that and will not accept any assistance in defending _your_ vibranium, then SHIELD must be able to study it and ascertain its nature and qualities," Coulson said, speaking to T'chaka, but clearly arguing for Fury, who let some minor agreement with this point show on his face. Not that that told you anything other than that he wanted to let some minor agreement with this point show on his face. Coulson took a deep breath and finished his argument, directly to Fury "We don't even know how much vibranium Klaue stole! We can't complete an investigation like that, your," his gaze flensed T'chaka for a moment "secrecy about the stuff has already cost," his eyes flicked back to Fury, " _us_ plenty, we need more information—"

"At last you shift from allegedly humanitarian arguments to your actual, practical ones," the king put in sharply.

Coulson's head turned like a gun coming to bear on a target and his voice was the hollow echo of a gunshot, "As you have demonstrated you care nothing for any life which is not Wakandan, I will not waste my time on arguments which will not breach your sociopathic and narcissistic nationalism. The fact that there are near infinite true and potent arguments in favor of my position is evidence not of my fickleness, but of my correctness."

There was a moment of absolute silence, as T'chaka's guards, decorative though they might be, moved closer to their lord, forming a cordon of flesh and vibranium against the threat implicit in Coulson's gaze and voice.

T'chaka met Coulson's flat eyed stare with his own. "Irrelevant. We have a treaty. It requires return of our property. Will SHIELD abide by it, or be foresworn?" he turned his head from Coulson's glare, to meet Fury's impassive face, "And be _known_ to be foresworn?"

Fury let a little agreement with that point show, then spoke, "You have a point, your majesty. However, so does Agent Coulson. You have demonstrated that a facility which housed vibranium was attacked and looted by Ulysses Klaue. But you have never said how much vibranium was stolen?"

There was a moment of silence as T'chaka considered his answer. If he said less than the true amount then SHIELD would claim any surviving excess without challenge; if he said more than the true amount, they would claim they needed samples to study as there was clearly some extant; if he said the true amount then they would know if there was more out there, information which even he did not have and they would learn something about the true capacity of the facility Klaue had attacked. Any true information about Wakanda leaving his hands made his stomach hurt.

Perhaps he should have let the War Dogs storm the place and retrieve the vibranium as the Royal Council had urged. But he was the only one amongst them who truly understood the outside world, like his War Dogs, he had to keep a foot in each world, not merely defend a border, or live his life within Wakanda as the rest of the Council did. Wakanda was technologically powerful, but did not have the foreign infrastructure for major power projection. An attack on SHIELD would have to attempt to hide behind local auxiliaries, or mercenaries, as there simply weren't enough War Dogs in the states to launch a successful attack on the Triskellion, assuming the vibranium was even here, which he could not know as SHIELD was carefully hiding that information, not committing it to any computer system connected to the outside world.

After a long moment, he decided to just go with the truth. "Klaue stole a quarter ton of vibranium when he murdered his way through my land and people. A quarter-ton he stole, a quarter-ton we _demand_ be returned to us."

"A quarter of a long ton or a short ton?" May interjected, before anyone else could respond, emotionally or physically to that extremely emotional demand.

"What?"

"A thousand kilograms or two thousand pounds? A ton can mean several things," May pointed out.

"He stole 250 kilograms of vibranium while murdering thirty seven of my people," T'chaka said.

"We recovered 191.2 kilograms of vibranium, which will _all_ be returned to Wakanda. Please identify a transfer point within Wakanda and your vibranium will be delivered there. The search for the remaining vibranium will continue," Fury flicked a look at Coulson who was staring at him in open mouthed horror at this betrayal, "under different leadership. Any additional recovered vibranium will be returned to you. However, Klaue is dead and cannot tell us what he did with it, whether it was lost in his escape, traded for help along the way, or lost along with the _Churchill_ after the accidental triggering of the final booby trap onboard that death machine."

T'chaka's eyes narrowed. The fury on the junior agents faces looked real, as did the betrayal, but they were spies. Most likely they were keeping the remaining vibranium. If any had made its way onto the market, his War Dogs would have heard. Still, better to get most of it out now and come back for the rest, especially since tracing the plane bringing them their vibranium might tell them where it was being hidden. Still, no need to let them have it entirely their own way. "I'm glad you saw reason and I look forward to receiving our vibranium and reports on the progress of your investigation. As we're now cooperating, I should admit that the man you captured is indeed an agent of Wakanda and we would request his return, in accordance with SHIELD's long-standing policy of returning agents of signatory members."

"Not when the traitor's actions result in the death of _anyone_ , let along other SHIELD personnel!" Coulson broke in, nearly foaming at the mouth.

"Which his did not. He reported on your investigation to us, but we," T'chaka frowned and continued, lying baldly, "did not," lying again, this time feeling just a hint of shame, not at the lie but at feigning weakness before these barbarous outlanders, "could not," and lying a final time, this time with no shame at all, his people had needed an enemy they could strike and hurt as Klaue hid from them, "and would not, carry out such attacks."

"Interesting claim, given that they hit the target we gave your man," Coulson pointed out bitterly, clearly trying to hold on to some bit of vengeance against Wakanda, which gave credibility to Fury's claim that they were turning over all the vibranium they'd recovered. Which was good, in that SHIELD being out of the vibranium business was good, and bad, in that any of Klaue's associates being in the vibranium business was _terrible._ Especially as they'd had to break their secrecy regarding possession of significant quantities of vibranium in order to get back what SHIELD was giving them back. Mining companies, R&D companies, other nations, intelligence agents, whether national or corporate were all going to be coming out of the woodwork trying to gain access to their vibranium now. Still, without N'jobu's help, none of them would succeed, and T'chaka knew N'jobu would help no one, ever again.

"Where there's one leak, there may be two," T'chaka countered with a shrug, masking his pain with the ease of long practice.

"Or perhaps someone penetrated your network. After all, someone penetrated your vibranium storage facilities and we know Klaue double-crossed one group once he'd got the vibranium, why not two?" Coulson pushed.

"All the more reason for SHIELD to open a base in Wakanda," Fury interjected at the moment when it seemed the two might come to blows.

"What?" T'chaka asked, rounding on the other man in surprise.

"Seriously, sir? Risk more SHIELD agents for these ungrateful—"

"As you point out, Wakanda is a signatory of the SHIELD treaty, which requires us to return your property to you and gives us certain rights to pursue criminals and operate within your territory. We have not historically exercised those rights, as we saw nothing happening in Wakanda which needed our attention. That was an…oversight, we will now correct. Unless you wish to withdraw from the SHIELD treaty?" Fury asked, very loudly not mentioning that the vibranium had not yet been returned.

T'chaka met Fury's stare with a masklike expression and let silence stretch uncomfortably. No one moved, or spoke as T'chaka tried to let silence speak for him.

It did not prompt any response from the SHIELD agents. Finally, after almost a minute of agonizing silence, he spoke as if he had merely been considering Fury's statement. "Of course not. As you say, such a base will only be to our advantage. I will be happy to work with you on that question, but local politics are complicated. I have a royal council to assuage and tribal needs which must be met. Finding a place for you and yours will be no easy task, as SHIELD has no powers of eminent domain and few will be willing to sell outlanders their land. This will be a matter of years of work, not a handshake."

"And yet, I offer you my hand," Fury said, coming to the king, who, in turn, took the extended hand and shook it, noting the muscle jumping in Coulson's jaw all the while. With the deal done, T'chaka left, longing for any outfit which was not the silly western suit and tie he had to wear to this meeting, but longing most especially for the uniform of the Black Panther, in which he might take the truth from the bleeding and broken bodies of the arrogant SHIELD agents. But that was not likely to work, for all that it was a pleasant fantasy. Still, he was 76% of the way to resolving his brother's folly.

 **XXXXX**

In another room, far from the one T'chaka and the Wakandans had been in (which was even now being swept for bugs), Fury spoke with Coulson and May. "Two kilograms. The remainder is going other places for other work."

"Yes, sir," Coulson agreed.

"When, sir?" May asked.

"Tomorrow."

"Thank you, sir," Coulson said.

"You've gotten better at acting, Phil," Fury said.

"A natural consequence of having children," May joked. Mostly.

Fury raised an eyebrow at Coulson, who shrugged. Fury nodded slightly, to himself, which meant nothing but that he wanted Coulson and May to see him, nodding slightly, to himself.

 ** _Author's Note: I know SHIELD stands for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division in the MCU. However, given SHIELD is clearly operating internationally and appears to answer to an international quasi-security council organization, I'm saying 'Homeland' doesn't make much sense here._**

 ** _T'chaka's sort of a jackass here, but from his perspective, nothing SHIELD says can be trusted, all their arguments lead to them keeping Wakanda's vibranium and they're engaged in motivated reasoning to get them there._**


	8. 1995—The End of the Beginning

**Chapter 8—1995—The End of the Beginning**

 ** _Author's Note: The title here is stolen from Agents of Shield. And this chapter is a bit shorter._**

"I am not an engineer! We can do some tests on the vibranium, but actually manipulating it? No one knows how to do that. I don't even know how they got it separated out into these nice kilogram sized units," Dr. Foster explained.

May gave him a blazing look. "Are you saying we did all that for nothing? You said the vibranium—"

"Was her best chance. And it is. We can see some improvement just having her hold the stuff and it seems to be impossible for her to phase through, but…look, how technical do you want this?"

"What needs to be done to save Ava's life?" Coulson asked.

"I can't give you a hundred percent answer, but our best guess is to make a collar out of the vibranium as the instability is originating in her central nervous system that will let it be dumped into the vibration-sink of the vibranium. Well, actually it's not a vibration-sink, like a heat-sink, but rather a vibr—"

"So we need to shape the vibranium," Coulson interrupted.

"The Wakandans would know," May offered.

"Some Wakandans would know and I'm not waiting for them to decide to share, especially since we aren't supposed to have _any_ vibranium. The only other person to work with vibranium is Howard Stark."

"Who's dead," May pointed out.

"We have most of his files. I've already had them brought over."

"That might help," Foster said. "I'll give you a list of engineers who might be able to take a crack at it."

 **XXXXX**

"Okay, the problem is that this is written in some sort of stupid code and even when we think we break the code, thank you advances in computer technology, the bastard seems to just leave out steps where he thinks things are obvious. We've got a list of the equipment he used to manipulate the vibranium, but given that we also have the repair and reconstruction bills for his failed attempts, we're not going to just muck about with them until we get lucky. You need someone who understands how Stark's mind worked."

Coulson gave the bespectacled engineer a calm, false smile. Every one they'd consulted had said the same thing. There was no point in whining, or making an enemy of a skilled, if not skilled-enough, woman just to vent his irritation. "Of course. Thank you."

May showed the engineer out. "So, Anthony Stark?" she asked.

"Apparently," Coulson's voice was redolent with irritation at this, showing all the truth he had hidden from the engineer (and the seven before her).

"Openly?" May asked.

Coulson gave her a flat look.

"His father was one of SHIELD's founders."

"And could keep a secret," Coulson countered.

"How would we know if young Stark is keeping secrets? They'd be secret," May argued, more to poke the other agent than because she actually thought the brand new CEO of Stark Industries was keeping anything from SHIELD.

"He broke off all contact with us, doesn't mean we broke off all contact with him," Coulson said obliquely. Not that he needed to. Keeping tabs on the owner of one of the largest arms dealers in the world was well within SHIELD's remit. Especially given Stark's abrupt cancellation of all SHIELD contracts and withdrawal from all contact with SHIELD following his father's death. SHIELD analysts were about evenly divided between the view that Stark blamed them for his parent's death, as they'd been on their way to meet with SHIELD personnel and the view that Stark was trying to separate himself from his father's image, a bit of badly timed, and late occurring, rebellion.

"Based on his file, he loves a puzzle and vibranium surely is that."

"And he'll want to announce to the world that he's solved it," Coulson countered, flicking out the current edition of Popular Mechanics magazine, left behind by one of the earlier engineers, which featured a young Tony Stark standing beside a red convertible which was hovering off the ground, with the caption 'A new futurist brings the future to us!"

May glanced at the image and gave a little moue at the image. "Admittedly, he likes attention."

"Especially from beautiful women," Coulson agreed.

May frowned. "I can get the information out of him, but he'll know he's been questioned. My methods aren't exactly," she stretched and joints popped all along her arms and back, "subtle."

"Conceited much? This will take someone good and maybe a bit younger than him," May gave him a sharp look, because social convention required it for the dig, but there was no heat behind it. "Someone he'll show off for."

"I could get him to show off for me, but he would probably just be showing off bruises, so I guess you're right. What about Agent Hartley?" May offered.

Coulson's eyes narrowed as he searched his memory for an agent by that name. "The agent from the _Iliad_?"

"You didn't see, but she can handle a knife, and an opponent. She couldn't take me, but Stark," May smiled, "or you? No problem."

Coulson nodded slightly, acknowledging the hit and May's expertise. "There's not really a good way to ask this about another agent, but—"

"She's attractive," May said. "Gay, but attractive."

Coulson raised an eyebrow at May's blunt words, a little surprised the other agent had confided in May given the brief time they'd been on the _Iliad_ and the _Churchill,_ but combat had a way of bonding people and May had a way of being ridiculously observant.

"Still, this'll call for more than muscle and looks. She'll need to play to her cover, can she do that?"

"I pulled her file when we got back, good scores at the Academy. She's wasted as a guard."

"All right. So we need a cover for her."

"Engineering student?" May offered.

"Never try to go toe to toe with a master in their field. Bring them onto yours," Coulson quoted Fury.

"Is that why I haven't seen you on the mats in a while?" May asked with the slight smile that was her smirk.

Coulson waved her off. "History. A history student, very impressed with his father's work on Captain America's shield. How could it have been done, blah-blah-blah."

"I know the type, get him talking and he'll never stop," May said, tiny smile widening into the expression that was her grin.

Coulson's eyes rolled. "It'll be rough if it's a process he can't guess, but even guesses on the process might help decode this stuff," a hand waved at Stark the Elder's files, "If not, then she'll 'uncover' it in her research and see what it jogs loose."

"Sounds like a plan."

 **XXXXX**

"We need to do something nice for Agent Hartley," Coulson noted as he watched Dr. Foster carefully examining the worked vibranium for anything which might catch on Ava's throat.

"Very nice," May agreed.

"She did a good job with Stark."

"And didn't punch him. Even once."

"Got the information we needed."

"And didn't punch him. Even once."

"Got out without him knowing she was SHIELD."

"And didn't punch him. Even once."

"Made reasonable contacts with his support staff."

"And didn't punch him. Even once."

"Really, very impressive work."

"And," May say Coulson's sickle-edged smile and continued smoothly, "impressive self-control."

Coulson frowned slightly. "Hartley didn't say anything about him being that bad."

"You weren't playing back-up to her."

Coulson's eyes rose slightly. "He got handsy?" he asked, a whisper of disapproval audible in his words, but may heard the underlying interest, not prurient, but professional. If Stark wouldn't keep his hands to himself, then there was potential for blackmail, lawsuits, damage to Stark Industries, which SHIELD might need to cause, exacerbate, or mitigate.

"Not unless he was invited to be. It's more…the man's so in love with himself he tries to pull you along into loving him to."

"Any luck with that?"

"Not with Hartley obviously," May said. "Though it wasn't for lack of trying."

"Any other luck with that?" he said, tone teasing, but May missed the joke, as she hadn't interacted with him at all.

"Quite a bit actually."

"We'll need to assign a team to watch that then."

"Why?" May asked despairingly.

"Stark owns a majority of the shares of Stark Industries, one of the largest arms companies in the world. If he dies without specifically disinheriting a child, that child will get…everything. You know, probably. I'll confirm that with the attorneys. But the point is, I really don't want majority ownership of a major arms company ending up in the hand of whoever Mr. Stark forgot to use a condom with. And though we probably can't prevent that, we can prevent them from also being a puppet of Van Chat, or Al Qaeda or some other group of dicks."

"I'm not taking that job."

"Well, you just said we should do something nice for Hartley. Leading a team would be a big step up for her."

"No."

"Fine, I'll pass that on to Sitwell to handle. It should just be surveillance and a bit of interference maybe. Nothing technical, all human action, given Stark's tech…" he muttered to himself.

"I thought you were still pissed at Sitwell," May said, eyes narrowed. He'd been grumpy for weeks after the other agent had been given the assignment of investigating the deaths of the Starks. Coulson the history buff had wanted that assignment, badly.

"Oh, come now, I wouldn't be so petty as to give him this job just because he snaked that assignment out from under me," Coulson said.

"Heard the wrong emphasis there, Coulson," May said, as he had indeed heard "I _thought_ you were still pissed at Sitwell," not "I thought _you_ were still pissed at Sitwell," the former expressing amusement at this petty revenge, the latter expressing surprise at his willingness to deal with the man who'd annoyed him.

After a moment of thought, Coulson just gave a slight shrug and turned away from her, back to Dr. Foster. "Doc, you've run every test you can think of, are you ready to let the techs finish assembling that thing?"

Dr. Foster jumped from where he'd still been examining the vibranium in the corner. "Just one more thing," he took a massive swing at the table with the curving piece of vibranium, putting every ounce of his massive frame into it. The blunt ended piece, carefully shaped to have a complete lack of sharp edged bounced off the heavy wood of the table, making a considerable divot and knocking loose a few shards. If he'd struck the middle, rather than directly above one of the legs he might have broken it in half, despite its sturdy construction. As it was the wooden leg of the table had slight stress lines appearing. "Amazing," Dr. Foster muttered.

"You're not _that_ strong doc, it's not that amazing," Coulson chided slightly.

"No, no, I mean…" he paused and visibly edited out techno-babble. "You ever accidentally hit something with a baseball bat? And the vibrations knock it out of your hand and leave your hand tingling, or numb?"

"Not accidentally, no," May said, just a moment too late for it to be quick.

Coulson let his eyes roll at that. "Yes, doc, I'm familiar with the problem."

"Not a problem, physics. Except, maybe not. The energy of my swing is transferred to the table and, in an equal and opposite action, back into the vibranium, which simply doesn't pass it on back to my hand. The potential implications for energy storage…at least if we can get the energy back out again, are…"

He became aware, despite his distraction, of the rather unfriendly stare of the two SHIELD agents. Who weren't actually all that pleased by him delaying Ava's treatment because he was interested in other things.

"Sorry, I mean the tests showed that…but there's a difference between testing and _knowing_ , you know?"

Blank stares met that.

"And now I _know_ , and yes, we can finish up assembly."

"Good," Coulson said coolly.

 **XXXXX**

"This is the first model, it has a physical latch and no cover, we're already working on an updated one which will have whatever cover you want over the metal and a voice-activated release," Dr. Foster was making excuses for the current state of the vibranium collar which Coulson had, quite literally, killed to have made. It was beginning to irritate the agent.

From Ava's expression, the delay was irritating her as well, and her patience snapped long before Coulson's did. "Let's just try it," she said, accent smoothing slightly after almost three years in the states under the care of folks who spoke with various American accents, mostly.

She'd shot up almost a foot in the months they'd been away and Dr. Weaver had had several not-awkward, but extremely technical discussions with her about puberty. The good doctor had also given May a heads up that certain additional supplies would need to be ordered in and Ava would need some instruction in their use, which she had been unwilling, or uninterested in accepting from her tutor. May had handled all that with her usual calm aplomb months ago, as soon as they'd returned, but Coulson was having a hard time adjusting to the radical changes the girl had undergone as she turned into a teenager.

"Okay, okay," Dr. Foster agreed, walking forward slowly, nervously stretching out his shaking hands. As he was the only person in the room who understood how the collar was supposed to work, that was a little bit worrisome. The last time Coulson had seen a man that nervous was when he'd had to talk a civilian through disarming a bomb via security camera and land line. That had not ended particularly well.

Coulson and May could see his nerves, as could Ava, but as neither of the agents bothered to take cover, or leave the room, the girl didn't feel any fear, only nervousness. A heavy silence filled the room as the collar touched her neck and closed, clicking shut under Dr. Foster's shaking fingers.

Ava damn near collapsed the moment the collar closed and Coulson was there to catch her as she swooned. A chorus of voices called Ava's name and her eyes slowly reopened, a beatific smile on her face. "It doesn't hurt," she whispered.

 **XXXXX**

The next three days passed in a flurry of tests. Ava's condition wasn't cured, but so long as the collar was on, she was in no pain, resolidified, it undid the damage phasing had done to her, though it left her unable to phase. With the collar off, she was in pain, but could still phase. Not a permanent cure, but close enough for the moment. It meant she could go outside. She could actually train with May, for which she was first grateful and eager, then bruised and eager. She could go shopping with Coulson, or take a class with Weaver, though there were few classes in the Sci-Tech Academy which she was ready for.

She could leave the room.

Though guards dogged her step, which she complained about periodically, she was happy.

The only thing marring her happiness was the complete uncertainty about what happened next for her. Her abilities, cursed and painful though they might have been, meant that she always had a place at SHIELD, under Coulson's guidance and May's protection. Now…it was all up in the air, in a terrifying way.

Finally, she did what May had always taught her to do, even if she couldn't do it with May, and directly confronted the problem.

"What's next, is a complicated question," Coulson said, looking across his desk, now mostly filled with knick-knacks and collectibles. Behind him was his, I-Love-Me wall, filled with awards, commendations and the occasional piece of artwork from the artist seated in his one, surprisingly comfortable, guest chair. "Mostly because it hasn't been decided yet. Because you haven't made your choice yet."

"And what choices do I have?" Ava asked. Though her words might have been taken for teenage sarcasm, or angst, she'd learned a lot from Coulson and May over the years, enough to know both how to ask a question and that the agents would give her choices if they could. It would be a while longer before she would learn to notice their hints that the options they offered weren't the only ones available to her.

"Many, so very many, but few reasonable options. First, you could choose to enter SHIELD's protection program. They'd settle you somewhere, with some nice family, where no one would ever find you." Ava stared at him, and he met her eyes evenly, unflinching. "Second, steps could be taken to place you in a boarding school, able to return her when it was on break and not subject to the authority of any parental figures, though subject to school authorities." Ava's head tilted slightly forward as she considered that. "Third," his eyes flicked away, "I've looked into the question and I, or Melinda and Andrew could formally adopt you, permitting you to continue on in much the same way as before, though with somewhat greater freedom as you would no longer need to live in the lab. We would ask, but never require, that you assist with continued testing of your abilities."

Ava's eyes narrowed at that and she almost made an angry remark, then remembered what May had told her when she asked the secret of the agent's control. "When someone says something which makes you angry ask why." Ava hadn't understood then, but May had pointed out all the various questions why could ask, and the most important two for this question, 'why are they saying it?' and 'why is it making me angry?' The fact that he mentioned continuing the testing in the context of adoption made her angry because it took what she wanted and tied it to something she did not want. That was simple enough. She didn't like pain. It made her more angry than she'd expected because he _only_ mentioned it in that context, which felt like an attempt to discourage her from that course of action. Like the adoption wasn't a real offer, but merely a polite one.

One other thing May had managed to pound into her head, however, was that she should _never_ assume she knew what was going on inside the head of other people. Especially when those other people were SHIELD agents.

One thing Coulson had told her was that asking 'why' wouldn't necessarily get you the truth, but you'd know what the other person had chosen to tell you, which was still more information than you had before.

"Why tell me that you'd want me to continue testing? Why only in the adoption choice? Trying to get me to choose another path?" she asked, anger coming despite her attempts at control.

Coulson cocked his head slightly, eyes coming back to rest on her as if she were a puzzle piece from an altogether different puzzle which had somehow gotten mixed into the thousand piece puzzle he was working on. "What's the first step in making a choice?" he asked obliquely.

Ava swallowed fury at the dodge, but getting angry with Coulson just didn't work. Foster would stutter and back off, Weaver would express sympathy and try to help, but trying to be angry with Phil, or Melinda, was just impossible. She remembered the lessons the two agents had given her and step one of any choice, or plan, or…anything really was "Gather information."

"Indeed. And I will not mislead you into any choice, nor will I permit my own preference to interfere with your choices. I will answer any question I can, except what I want you to choose," Coulson said, obliquely.

Ava sat there in silence for a long time, considering his words. This was often the pattern of their talks, but she was always surprised that he didn't turn away, or get back to work, or try to hurry her. He simply sat and waited for her to figure out her response. The number of times she'd had to give up and ask him to explain had dropped significantly since his return, even if Weaver and Foster didn't play these sorts of games.

And then she understood. A smile blossomed across her face, nearly half as beatific as the one which had appeared when he finally succeeded in taking away her pain. The only reason to include the negatives in the last choice was if he was trying too hard to prevent himself from pushing her in that direction.

That was what he wanted her to choose. She opened her mouth to make a choice, then stopped, pinned by his gaze and remembered what May had told her about making choices.

"How long do I have to decide?"

"As long as you like," he answered, tonelessly, leaving her trapped in endless preparation for a test she would decide when to take.

She rose slowly, gave him a nod, and walked out the door, picking up her guards as she left. "I'll let you know what I decide," she said, hand tapping the pocket which held the badge he'd given her all those years ago and refused to accept from her whenever he left, just asking for her to hold onto it for him. A wordless promise that he would return, as he always had.

Coulson nodded back to her and turned back to his work.

 **XXXXX**

May always said, the first step in making a decision was discovering how long you had to decide. Sometimes you had years, sometimes moments and sometimes someone, or something else acted before you even knew a decision was called for.

Fire does not wait for you to make decisions. Nor do explosions.

Both visited the Academy of Science and Technology in the middle of the night.

Anne Weaver was home, in bed. She was unharmed. Physically.

Melinda May was at home with her husband, Andrew Gardner. She was unharmed. Physically.

Bill Foster was working later in the lab. He was badly harmed. In all ways.

Phillip Coulson was in the building which housed the lab, on his way to check on Ava Starr before he got some sleep of his own. He met with fire and explosions on the way, which he didn't let stop him. He suffered burns and failure.

Ava Starr was in the lab when it exploded. Shards of vibranium, bones turned to shrapnel, part of a corpse and the twisted remnants of a SHIELD badge were found in her room, which was the center of the explosion.

 **End of Book 1**

 ** _Author's Note: Well, that's a cheery ending. And now, deliberately misleading selections from book two:_**

 ** _"…it was fucking Wakanda and their vibranium craziness…"_**

 ** _"I will rain hellfire down upon them until I burn them to ash."_**

 ** _"Cyborgs? Well, that's new."_**

 ** _"Everyone involved in this will end up in a grave, or a cell about the same size as a grave for so long that they'll wish I'd dumped them in an_ actual _grave."_**


End file.
